AMERICA HAS BEEN CAUGHT WITH THE BIGGEST CRISIS EVER TO CONFRONT HUMANITY WHILE STUCK WITH THE MOST INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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AMERICA HAS BEEN CAUGHT WITH THE BIGGEST CRISIS EVER TO CONFRONT HUMANITY WHILE STUCK WITH THE MOST INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY

Everyone knew from the very beginning that Donald Trump was grossly unqualified to be President of the United States, but several factors merged to cause the American people to completely ignore that fact. As a result, America’s hatred, bigotry and greed has finally caught up with us. The nation is now facing the biggest threat in human history and we’re caught flat-footed with the most incompetent and ill-equipped President in the history of this nation to address it. Essentially, we’re onboard a sputtering 747 with a man who has the character and intelligence of an 8-year-old at the controls. The situation is so stark in its irony, it almost seems like an act of God.

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Many bigots saw their vote for Donald Trump as payback for their anger over the election of Barack Obama. They were literally furious over the nation’s election of a Black man – so much so, in fact, that they tried to delegitimize his presidency by claiming that he wasn’t born in the United States, and ironically, that conspiracy theory was led by none other than Donald J. Trump. That’s one of the things that makes the current situation seem like an act of God. Trump seems to be reaping what he's sewn. Every since he was elected he’s been struggling mightily with the issue that his own presidency is illegitimate due to Russian interference on his behalf in the 2016 election. He's so sensitive to that fully substantiated charge that his staff can't even mention the controversy in his presence.
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But the mere election of President Obama wasn’t the only thing that rubbed bigots the wrong way. They were also angry over Obama’s excellence as President. Just prior to Obama coming on the scene there was a raging debate going on in this country regarding the competence of Black professionals. Due to their own insecurity, there were many racists, like Trump, who claimed that Black professionals were professionals in name only. It was their contention that due to Affirmative Action, Black professionals didn’t have to pay the dues to obtain their credentials that their White counterparts had to pay, therefore, they were less qualified. As a direct result of that attitude, many highly qualified Black professionals were being passed over for upward mobility in their chosen professions.
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But when Barack Obama stepped up to the plate and played them like a fiddle, he not only demonstrated that Black people were up to tackling the most arduous tasks with ease and grace, but in many cases, possessed the intellectual creativity to perform their task better than most - and without trickery, scandal, or anyone being indicted. As a result of his excellence, Obama was voted by presidential historians to be the 8^th greatest president in American history. Now, all we hear from the bigots are crickets.
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But the bigots never forgave America for that – for allowing President Obama to strike that devastating blow against White supremacy - so in retribution, bigots, along with the greedy, the self-serving, and faux Christians, elected Donald Trump, who has been voted by those very same historians as the nation’s worst president in history, and we’re all now paying the price for their selfish idiocy.

Now, I’m not simply spewing petty partisanship on this issue. The facts fully substantiate my contention.  Let’s take a look at Donald Trump’s character. He’s ignorant, petty, childish, selfish, petulant, irresponsible, narcissistic, dishonest, insecure, divisive, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, racist, thin-skinned, boastful, uninformed, greedy, a pathological liar, anti-intellectual, stubborn, sneaky, treasonous, cowardly, and undignified. What more needs to be said?
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It’s next to impossible to even fathom a human being with so many flaws, and without even one saving grace - he's accused of raping a 13-year-old child, 

and raping another woman in a department store dressing room! It takes an act of divine intervention just to find a person as flawed as Donald Trump. It's almost as if God is using an ironic sense of humor to rub our gross hypocrisy in our faces.
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Conservatives screamed to the high Heavens when Michelle Obama wore a sleeveless dress in public, yet, now a nation whose motto is "In God we Trust" has a First Lady who's an illegal porn model who got into the country on an Einstein Visa of all things. Just think about that. Can you see the irony in it!!!? Everything about Trump is a fraud, yet . . .

WHITE EVANGELICALS AND ONE FOOL 
WORSHIPING DONALD TRUMP

So maybe Trump was right about being “the chosen one” – maybe he was chosen by God to punish America for all of its many sins – for the slaughter of 200 million Native Americans (wiping out 10 generations over 200 years) to steal their land, the enslavement of 12.5 million African Americans to work the stolen land, the countless lynchings during Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese Americans, the dropping of not one, but two, atomic bombs on the innocent noncombatants of Japan, for killing millions of Vietnamese and people in the Middle East, and for tearing Hispanic families apart at the Southern border and placing their children in cages.

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There’s no other nation on Earth that’s better at cherry-picking laudable events in its history to celebrate, but the fact is, for the short time we’ve

been in existence, we’ve been the most brutally evil nation in the history of humanity, and that’s an undeniable fact - we condemn Hitler for killing 6 million Jews - which was indeed a horrible act of brutality - but we killed TWO HUNDRED MILLION Native Americans alone after being welcomed to their land - wiping them out for over 200 years (10 generations) - and for nothing more than rampant greed. That goes a long way towards explaining why we don't trust immigrants.
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So while we can fool one another by proclaiming how honorable and God-loving we are, we can’t fool God. Thus, now the chickens have come home to roost with the worst plague in human history, and accompanied by none other than the Son of Satan himself, Donald J. Trump. May God have mercy on our souls.

DONALD J. TRUMP

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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PLACING KOBE BRYANT’S DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY
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PLACING KOBE BRYANT’S DEATH IN PERSPECTIVE

I placed a simple comment on Facebook, and I couldn’t believe how some people freaked out. But it struck me as a teaching moment. The response I received not only demonstrated how we’re having our minds stolen from us, but how effective that effort has been. So I think it’s worth discussing, at least briefly.
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I posted the following:

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“I was greatly saddened over Kobe's untimely death, and even more saddened by the death of his daughter, Gianna. But I'm about Kobe'ed out at this point. Millions of people have died since Kobe, so shouldn’t we be just as mournful over them? I’m a father and a grandfather more than I am anything else, so every time I hear about this tragedy it depresses me greatly – not so much about Kobe, but about his baby girl. So let’s move on – PLEASE!!!”

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In response, most people simply took it like I meant it – while I'm sorry about what happened to Kobe, we shouldn't treat it like the fall of Rome. But in a few cases, I got the kind of hostility that made it seem like I told them they shouldn’t mourn their mother, and all simply because I stated an opinion. One person told me to mind my own business, and another suggested that I should get off the social media.
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Well, I’m not getting off of social media. I expressed an opinion, and that's what people do on social media. In fact, that’s what gives social media it’s value, the many varied opinions shared on multiple subjects. Such comments are designed to stimulate the mind, and encourages people to think. So no opinion should be taboo, regardless of its content.
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Making any subject taboo is anti-intellectual, and anti-intellectualism is the establishment’s most potent tool for keeping us brainwashed. They use it to herd us like cattle. It’s called “group-think.” Anti-intellectualism is what makes it possible for people like Donald Trump to exist. If you'll notice, the dumber a person is, the more likely he is to be a Trump supporter. The reason for that is they've been trained to be guided by their emotions instead of their brain.

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In that regard, with Black people being shot and killed by police through their windows while watching television, and others dying on the street of hunger and freezing to death in the elements, and then on top of that, having a lunatic in the White House putting children in cages and trying to turn the entire damn country into a prison camp, going into deep mourning over the death of a rich man who bounced a ball for a living is a major “wakeup-and-get-a-life" moment.
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Most people can't even recite the names of the other people who died in the crash, yet their lives were just as precious as Kobe's. Thus, they're not mourning a person, they're mourning fame. So it's important for us to remember that while we might feel sorrow over Kobe's death, he wasn't Jesus. So while we should mourn the death of a family member, a situation like Kobe's rate a "I'm sorry to hear that", and move on. We might want to set a day or two aside to recall who he was, but going on and on about it is ridiculous. Yes, I mourned - I'm still in sorrow - but I'm in mourning for Gianna and her mother much more than I am for Kobe. I'm mourning over the pain it brought into their lives, not because I considered Kobe to be like Jesus. I mourn over anyone's death, not just Kobe's.
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But many of us tend to take the death of a celebrity to a ridiculous extent, and that clearly shows how much control the White man has over our minds. In spite of everything that’s happened to us since his death, some people are still mourning over Prince, and never even met the guy. I mean, give me a break! That’s not mourning, that’s called a distraction. The establishment can cut our throats, and then take our minds off  what they've done in the here-and-now by simply saying, “But wasn’t that horrible about Prince?”, and we’ll forget all about the fact that they just took school lunches from our children, stole our Medicare, and threw the elderly out on the street. We'll allow them take us to an entirely different zone and forget all about the fact that they just cut our throats.
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They’ve been playing us like that for years, so we've got to learn to remain focused and prioritize what's really important in life. I just read a comment by a conservative Trump supporter that said Martin Luther King would be against the Democrats – and it was a Black bigot hugger who said it. So in spite of all of the years since Martin's death, they're STILL trying to use the death of a Black icon to cloud our minds. It's called misdirection, or changing the subject. They do it routinely. That's why every time Trump is caught with his hand in the cookie jar, instead of trying to denying it, they say, "Yeah, but what about Obama?", and then come up with a lie you have to argue with them over, effectively changing the subject. 

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Regarding Kobe, one commenter, said, "I am not about to stop praising Black excellence." And that gets to the crux of the matter. It points out another way that they use distraction to redirect our minds. We’re being indoctrinated into accepting their view of what constitutes Black excellence. There’s no doubt about the fact that Kobe was excellent at what he did, but what Black people need to consider is, was what Kobe did intrinsically excellent in itself? The man bounced a ball for a living. What intrinsic value does that have for the Black community, or humanity as a whole? Let me answer that - solutely none. In fact, if basketball had never been invented humanity wouldn’t have even missed a beat.

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So the bottom line is, through no fault of his own, Kobe was engaged in the kind of distractions that actually hurt the Black community, because they used him to keep us focused on the frivolous rather than the serious matters in life. Black people need to be focused on the things that can move us forward as a people - things like math, science, and engineering - not on how well we can bounce a damn ball.
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Life is not a game. Playing games is for children. While the White man is grooming his kids to own the racetrack, he's dangling a carrot before ours to become the damn horse – and if you want to see how they treat horses, just look at Colin Kaepernick.

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So I’m not saying that we shouldn’t feel bad about what happened to Kobe, but we should be careful about who we enshrine as our cultural heroes. While Kobe was undoubtedly skilled at what he did, so is a mechanic, but the White establishment can use Kobe's skills to manipulate us as a people – and they do. Kobe was famous because the White man made him famous. Kobe was good, but he wasn’t special. The Black community is filled with young people with his kind of talent in many areas, but we don't freak-out if something happens to one of them. So the only thing that makes Kobe different is he was just lucky enough to be chosen by the White man for their purpose.  
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The White man controls the sports leagues, the media, and the publicity machines. And he uses that machine to keep brilliant Black minds seeking wealth and fame instead of pursuing their true excellence, the excellence that's locked within their minds. That serves the White establishment’s purpose, because without true Black excellence, and the development of our intellectual creativity, all the Kobe Bryants in the world can’t move the Black community forward.
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Kobe stands as a symbol of wealth and fame for other young Black people to aspire to if they choose to shun knowledge for celebrity. But that serves the White man's purposes, not ours. The White man selects a handful of Black people and make them superstars in order to hold millions of Black people down. So while we can, and we should, admire what Kobe accomplished, we shouldn’t worship him for a minute. We should worship knowledge. Because the White man didn't enslave us because he could beat us up - he was able to enslave us because he had a knowledge of gunpowder that we didn't possess, and he had his mind on conquest while we were thinking of other things. We can't allow that to continue to happen. It's essential that Black people learn to remain focused.
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And I’m not just blowing smoke. I believe in what I’m saying. My son, Eric Jr., is in his university's Basketball Hall of Fame, and he had several friends

that went into the NBA. When he went into high school he walked through the door as their starting center. In fact, they didn't even wait for him to get to high school. When he graduated from middle school they started working with him during the Summer. But when he graduated from college, I noticed he had already started living the celebrity lifestyle – clubbing every night, and running around in expensive cars, and hanging out with beautiful, high-living women. I didn’t like that, because I felt that it was a frivolous lifestyle, and I was losing the down-to-Earth son that I’d put so much effort into raising. So I encouraged him to pass up trying to go into the NBA and develop his mind and character and pursue a life of substance instead, and that's exactly what he did. I didn't put all of my efforts into raising a human being to make bouncing a ball the high point of his life. I felt that he had more to offer to the world, and I was right. He ended up going all over the world with the President of the United States.
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He's gone on to become quite successful and greatly admired by everyone who knows him.  Currently my grandson, Eric III, is a starting player at Oklahoma City University, and I was curious to know if my son regretted the advice that I'd given him to give up playing ball himself. So we recently discussed the subject, and he said he didn't regret it for a minute. In fact, he said, he was glad I intervened, because if I hadn't, his two sons wouldn't be here. And I know exactly where he was coming from. I wanted to be John Coltrane and go all over the world playing my saxophone, but when Eric Jr and his sister, Kai, were born, I had to make a decision, and I don't regret it for a minute either. THEY became my fame and fortune, and no amount of celebrity could replace them for a second. That's exactly why I'm sitting here writin' instead of giggin', and I'm thrilled about it. 

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ERIC III

Life is about much more than trying to be a celebrity and chasing a dollar. Life is about happiness, personal development, and enjoying your family. Eric ended up producing two sons who are following in his footsteps. Eric III, who is headed for Wall Street, and Eli, a hell of a writer, and currently in military intelligence. THEY are my claim to fame, and they can take my bows for me, because whatever they accomplish, is my accomplishment. They allow me to face any man in the world eyeball-to eyeball, regardless of his wealth and power, and challenge his greatness. I can walk into the White House and challenge Donald Trump to compare his kids to what I've produced. That gives me stature, and it says it all.
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So ballin' is fun on the playground as a child, and it can be helpful in getting a young person through college, but I've taught my kids that it's only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Our people have gone through far too much to spend our lives playing games - no matter how much they pay us. Where would we be if Martin and Malcolm had decided to dedicate their lives to bouncin' a ball, or Rosa Parks had decided to shake her ass for a living? We wouldn't be very well off, I assure you.
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Excellence breeds respect, and the Black community has ample evidence of the value of excellence,

knowledge, and character currently walking among us. Who commands more respect, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump with all of his wealth? Obama is, without a doubt. As a direct result of Barack’s excellence, he’s brought honor to our entire culture.
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Prior to Barack Obama coming along, in spite of all our athletic ability and "soul", there was a raging debate going on in this country about whether or not Black people were inherently inferior. It was being alleged by many that Affirmative Action was the only thing that allowed Black people to compete with their White counterparts. But since Barack Obama, you rarely, if ever, hear anyone trying to make that claim today – in fact, Trump spends his every waking hour trying to prove he’s even close to being as competent as Barack Obama, and as a lifelong bigot, it's driving him crazy. But Donald will just have to be content with going crazy, because he'll never be able to compete with Obama. Barack learned as a child that what we so dismissively call "soul" is actually intellectual brilliance straining to be unleashed, and he developed that brilliance into becoming one of the greatest presidents this country has ever known. He's the Charlie Parker of American politics.
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So it’s important for Black people to remember that God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to think. So we should always honor knowledge, character, and intellect over all other things. But the White establishment would have our Black youth believe that their highest aspiration in life should be the opportunity to run up and down some basketball court or football field with a ball. That “keeps us in our place”. But if you stop and give it just one moment’s thought, it becomes clear that any dog can outrun us. So what’s the point?

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So, again, I'm very sorry that Kobe met with the untimely tragedy that befell him, but we’ve got to keep life in perspective. People die every day, but there are a lot more important things in life to focused on other than bringing life to a standstill over a man with the ability to bounce a ball – and taking the time to develop our intellect, and devising a strategy for surviving our current condition should be at the very top of that list. We must focus on keeping our culture alive. 
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So wipe your eyes, say goodbye to Kobe, and let's focus on moving our people forward.

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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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THE REPUBLICAN SENATE HAS REVEALED ITSELF TO BE FILLED WITH COWARDLY AND UNPATRIOTIC FRAUDS - JUST LIKE THEIR PRESIDENT

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

THE REPUBLICAN SENATE HAS REVEALED ITSELF TO BE FILLED WITH COWARDLY AND UNPATRIOTIC FRAUDS -
JUST LIKE THEIR PRESIDENT

When you’re trying to dig yourself out of a hole, you’ve got to be careful during the digging not to cause the walls to cave in and make things worse. Well, that’s exactly what the Republican senate has done to themselves by voting not to allow any additional witnesses or evidence to be presented in the Trump impeachment trial. Trump's clumsy and corrupt handling of the Ukrainian matter already had the GOP in a hole, but their even clumsier defense made the situation even worse, and then, their refusal to allow new evidence in the midst of the ever-mounting bombshell evidence leaking out on a daily basis has made the situation a disaster. They don’t even have a credible excuse for their actions. So the evidence is clear for everyone to see – the GOP is engaged in a coverup that gives their personal interests priority over that of the country. That blows all of their claims of patriotism and the wearing of flag pins in their lapels straight to Hell.

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That essentially destroys the credibility of the Republican Party, and conservatism in general, because the claim of patriotism is what they hang their hats on. They not only use it for campaign purposes by claiming that, unlike liberal Democrats, they love America, but they also use it to promote their bigotry. Look at how they used patriotism to attack Colin Keapernick.
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Conservatives claimed that when Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem, he was disrespecting the flag. That always struck me as curious. How can Colin Kaepernick be accused of denigrating the flag by taking a knee when the flag is a SYMBOL of free expression? That’s like saying a person is disrespecting the church by being a Christian. That’s not only hypocritical, but stupid.
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As a former marine I can say without a doubt - and I’m sure that Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Gen. Kelly, could also tell him - that American fighting men and women didn’t die for a piece of cloth or a song, they died for what that piece of cloth represents, the very personal freedom that Trump was trying to deny Kaepernick and his fellow players.  While I can fully understand Trump being ignorant in the area of American patriotism - since when the nation called upon him to serve the country, he showed up at the draft board with a note from his daddy's doctor saying his feet hurt - any TRUE American should understand that Colin Kaepernick and his fellow players were not disrespecting the flag at all, Trump did.
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Colin Kaepernick was acting in the truest tradition of American patriotism by speaking out in order to make this country a better place for all. Unlike the Republican senate, he was willing to place his personal interest on the line to confront un-American bigots for being the lyin’ and hypocritical racists that they are - and the bigots know that!!! But once they were confronted with their own anti-Americanism, they claimed that it was the PLAYERS who were un-American!!! That’s typical racist bullshit. People of Trump's ilk also accused Dr. Martin Luther King of being un-American.
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MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL 

AND DONALD TRUMP

But now that these Trumplodytes have given America the collective finger, they’ve made it clear that it’s all been a scam from the very beginning. In spite of the fact that 50 to 43 percent of the American people wants Trump convicted by the senate and removed from office, Republican senators have given the most corrupt and self-serving President in the history of this nation a complete pass on his criminal behavior – and never mind that his reckless irresponsibility and profound ignorance is placing this nation, and the world, in extreme danger, they deem it to be in their own personal interest to turn a blind-eye to it.
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From their point of view, the claim of patriotism can come in handy as long as it’s kept in perspective, but Trump controls the Republican Party and they need their seats in the senate. It's been reported that Republican senators were told that the head of anyone who didn't follow the party line would be placed on a spike. So they did just what they were told and said, to Hell with America. We have mortgages to pay!
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In order to justify their position, Trump's lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, claimed that “Abuse of Power is not an impeachable offense", but that's clearly nonsense. The primary reason the founders left "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" undefined is so CONGRESS could determine whether a given behavior is impeachable on a case by case basis.

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Dershowitz also claimed that whatever the President does, if he deems it to be in the best interest of the people, it's not impeachable. I'm sure you remember that argument from Richard Nixon - "If the President does it, it's not illegal."  But if that's the case, what if the President decides that killing his opponent so he can be re-elected is in the public interest? And since, according to the Department of Justice, the President can’t be indicted or held accountable while in office, if we can't impeach him, what are our options? We wouldn't have any, so essentially, Donald Trump is no longer  President, the Republican senate has crowned him King. He can not only do no wrong, but we can't even present evidence accusing him of doing any wrong, and that's distinctly un-American. Thus, American democracy has been disposed of like a used Tampon.
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Federal law is clear:
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18 U.S. Code § 1621. Perjury
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"Whoever—

(1)
having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or
(2)
in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true; is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section is applicable whether the statement or subscription is made within or without the United States."
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Based on the above law, Donald Trump and virtually every Republican member of the United States Senate is guilty of violating their oaths of office, and the senators are guilty of committing perjury in violating their oath to sit in judgment in the Trump Impeachment Trial IMPARTIALLY. 
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As a direct result of this criminal conduct, there have been 62 impeachments of federal officers in this nation's history, and this is the very first time in history that all witnesses and evidential documents have been blocked. So in spite of their oath to be impartial, the Republican senate told the house in no uncertain terms that we’re not going to allow the American people to either see or hear the evidence in this case, because then we'll have to justify letting this criminal off the hook. In doing so, they've committed a crime, but they think we're too dumb to realize that. And in addition to all of that, now new firsthand information is surfacing that suggests that Trump's defense attorney, Pat Cipollone, was involved in the original crime. It's a total rat's nest. So no wonder they're desperate to hide the facts! 

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The Republican senate is treating the American people like we’re children, so in November we must show them that we’re not. No organization can run efficiently that allows its employees to dictate to management, and that’s exactly what the American people represent under the United States Constitution – the Board of Directors of this nation. So in the next election we must put these insubordinate employees in their place, and relegate them all to the garbage heap of American history. If we fail to do so, our children will no longer live in the America we have come to know. They'll live under a dictatorship.
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There’s a reason why Vladimir Putin is the only man in the world who Donald Trump respects. You'll never hear him call Vladimir out of his name on Twitter. Just take a moment to ask yourself - Why? Let me tell you why, because Donald Trump is greedy and selfish and the Russian mafia pulled him out of bankruptcy when no American bank would touch him - and as we speak they're using his name and businesses to launder money, that's why he's so desperate to keep his taxes hidden. So Trump doesn't care anything about you, your children, or America. All Trump cares about is the Trump Tower he wants to build in Moscow when he leaves office - that is, if he decides that he wants to leave office. Because he now has no choice but to try to turn America into a dictatorship at this point, because if he doesn't, he's going to prison.

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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CHASING THE DOLLAR

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY
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CHASING THE DOLLAR

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Gustavo Escanelle  said, “Prince [Harry] had everything, castle, title, money, fame, what else could go wrong? We shall see, bad call on his part.”

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In response, I don't think so, Gustavo. You left out the most important thing in life - happiness. Prince Harry has just proven himself to be a REAL prince. I know that I look at him a lot differently, because he's proven himself to have character and class. On the other hand, all the stuff you listed are purely superficial. What Prince Harry has done is the stuff that fairytales are made of. This is a real-life Prince Charming, sweeping his Black princess off her feet, saying to hell with what anyone thinks, and riding off into the sunset with the love of his life. Nothing could be more beautiful.

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This is one of those moments in world history that will serve as a metaphor for what all of our lives should be, and I guarantee you that a movie is going to be made about this episode of love and devotion, and for centuries to come, people will be talking about this beautiful love story.  From this day forward, Prince Harry will always be remembered as the world’s most admired prince, because he’s carried himself like one.

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And with regard to what he’s given up, he’s gained much more than he’s lost. I've spent all of my adult life loving my family and pursuing knowledge and happiness. As a result, I've developed skills that people are willing to pay me to utilize on their behalf. Attorneys call me and offer to share a third of their fees to do legal research and brief writing for them, and I do many other things. I don't even know how much money I have in the bank. I received a $20,000 check last week and threw it in a filing cabinet, because as long as when I need money the ATM spits out the cash, it doesn't matter how much I have in the bank. But today is my daughter birthday, so what matters is, I can put a smile on her face, and my granddaughter is a Jackson State, and I can help her to focus on studying to become a doctor instead of worrying about money. 

People waste their entire lives chasing a dollar. That keeps them from enjoying their lives and family in the moment, and in the end it doesn't make them any happier, unless their idea of happiness is trying to impress others with what they can buy. But in the final analysis, while they can go out and buy a mansion, they can only live in one room at a time. So the only way they're really gonna be happy is to make themselves better and more knowledgeable than they were yesterday. We should cut out trying to impress all the middle-men and impress ourselves. That's who we're really after in the first place. Everything we do - including trying to impress others - we do to try to make ourselves feel better about who you are.

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Once, after a case came in, I had my daughter take me to a car lot and I bought a brand-new Escalade truck, in cash (for the most part). But I wasn't any happier when I drove off in it than I was when we entered the car lot. That taught me a valuable lesson in life, and I never forgot it. Yeah, all of my "friends" were impressed by my pearl white Esclade, but they weren't doin' shit for me, so why should I care about trying to impress them? All it did was kept phonies grinnin' in my face. I needed to be trying to impress myself - and that's exactly what I do today.  

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I learned that we should simply gather enough money to be comfortable and not have to live from hand to mouth. Thereafter, we should focus on intellectual development and being happy. Because life flies by, and if we spend it chasing a dollar, we'll look back one day and realize that we’ve never taken the time to enjoy the life we’ve been given. So if you really want to enjoy your life, take the time to enjoy it, and not spend all your money trying to live a lie to impress others. Because in time, the money you save just living a casual and laid-back life instead of trying to impress others can, in itself, make you rich. 
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And in that regard, who do you think is happiest, Donald Trump, with all of his alleged money, or Barack Obama? Think about that. Trump would do anything to be as brilliant, and as loved and respected as Obama, that's why he's always trying to compare himself to him. But he'll never be able to compete with Obama, because Barack has spent his entire life perfecting himself. So the difference between him and Dubious Donald is hugely apparent. In fact, if Michelle decided to run for president, Trump wouldn't have a chance, because even many Republicans would vote to get knowledge, common sense, and class back into the White House. Because NOTHING impresses people like knowledge and character - not even money – and Prince Harry has clearly demonstrated that he has both. So I wish him, his son, and his beautiful princess, much happiness.

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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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NAJEE ALI - AND THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

NAJEE ALI  

AND THE WRITING ON THE WALL
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Tim, I've known you for years, so I'm shocked to hear you say that Najee Ali has too much baggage to run for office. I realize there was no animosity in your comment and you’re simply stating an opinion, but I beg to differ.
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I realize that Najee has some issues in his past, but I’ve had issues of my own, so I look at those issues a little differently than most. I’m the son of a lifelong drug dealer, and between the ages of 12 and 19 years old I spent more time going in and out of jail than I did on the street. If it hadn't been for a Sgt. Foster, a White bruiser of a cop right out of central casting, my life might have been entirely different. Foster, who busted me for the first time when I was only12 years old followed my budding criminal career when he was a juvenile officer, and he continued to harass me as he moved up the ranks – first he used to harass me on the street himself when he was a street cop, and after he moved up the ranks he had his subordinates harassing me. 
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At the time I didn't know why he focused in on me, but after looking back upon it, I think he was just fascinated by me because of my father, Mac, and the fact  that I was such a confirmed street urchin at such an early age. At 12 years old I was dealing single joints at Carver Jr. High School in the 7th grade. I walked through the door dealing, and that was where I first came into contact with Foster. One of his officers busted me at school. I overheard him and one of the other cops sorta jokin' about it. I heard one cop say, "I couldn't believe it! This kid's up there at the school getting rich dealing hand over fist. We busted him with 60 joints!" They only busted me because they caught one of the other kids getting high and he snitched on me.
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As I got older Foster used to try to embarrass me on the block. He once left a message for me on the street when I was about 16 telling the fellas to tell

MY FATHER, MAC, AND BROTHER, VIRGIL, IN 1966

me if I didn't have my ass up at the police station by 9 a.m. the next morning he was gonna beat my ass. The fellas got a big kick out of that. The way they related it was, Foster was up here lookin' for you, and he said, "If you don't arrest your own ass and report to jail by 9 a.m. in the morning, you ain't gon' have a ass by noon."  I didn't like the way he was embarrassing me, but you know what - I was up there at the police station at 9 a.m. - on the dot. He also once warned me that if I didn’t get my brains blown out first, I was gonna to end up spending the rest of my life in prison next to my dad. He told me that I was too young to be trying to hangout with my father's crew. But what he didn't know was, I wasn't hanging out, they were taking care of me while my father was away. They were there to keep my youthful stupidity in check. My father knew every move I made, and was able to block many of them (THE HUSTLERS).
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This went on all throughout my teenage years - when I was on the street. Then when I was 19 years old (an adult), I ended up getting busted for a very serious drug charge, involving the possession of a large quantity of heroin, Seconal, and Mollies for sale. Needless to say, I lost my case, so when I showed up at court for sentencing, with my record, I was prepared to go away for a long, long time. And then Foster popped up in court. I thought he came to gloat, because by that time he was a captain and the commanding officer of 77 Division, and I didn’t even get busted in his jurisdiction.
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So as I was waiting to be sent to the joint, when my case came up, Foster and the judge took me into the judge’s chambers and Foster started telling the judge that I wasn’t really a criminal, I was just stupid. When I started to protest about him calling me stupid, he told me to shut up, and started telling the judge about my father (who had spent a lot of time in San Quentin) and how he busted me with a half can of weed when I was 12 years old.
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When he was done, the judge (who was a former Marine Corps officer) offered me a deal. He told me he would hold my current conviction in abeyance and throw it out, and expunge my entire juvenile record, if I agreed to go into the Marine Corps and I came out with an honorable discharge. And of course, I jumped at it, because it meant that instead of having to catch the “Grey Goose” to the joint, I could go home and get high. But unbeknownst to me, that was the moment that completely changed my life. It changed a lot of lives.
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As a direct result of that one moment in my life, I ended up going into the Marine Corps, getting an education (when I went to court I was a high school dropout), and as promised, when I got out I went before the court and that same judge expunged my record. So my life had completely changed. I was clean as a White fish. Thereafter, I married my late wife, Val, and we ended up having Kai and Lil' Eric. But I stayed in contact with Foster, and even used to go up to the 77th Div. and visit him from time to time. Then after I graduated from college he suggested that I might want to consider a career with the LAPD, and I was considering it, until Val asked me one simple question - "That sounds like a plan, but where are you gon' sleep when you get off?" So that abruptly ended that prospect. 

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ERIC JR.

But the most amazing irony of all was that my son, Eric Jr., who grew up listening to all these stories ended up becoming a Drug Enforcement agent in Washington State, and the reason for that was very simple – because he was on a mission. He knew my story, and the story of his grandfather, so he had an up-close and personal understanding of what drugs were doing to the Black community. But he didn't want to be a street cop, busting people who were just struggling to survive, he wanted to go after the people at the top of the food chain, so he went into the DEA.
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Eric knew that if it hadn’t been for Foster, and that one moment that he stood up for me in court, neither he, nor his sister, Kai, would have ever been born, because I would have been in the joint - or at least, that's the way I like to see it, because as a writer I tend to be on the melodramatic side. But in actuality, he might have just closed his eye and threw a dart at a dartboard and hit DEA instead of FBI or the Secret Service (who he used to work with in the military as an Air Force Raven). But he did want to be a federal agent, because he was a big Buck Rodgers fan as a kid.
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Capt. Foster lived to see Eric enter the DEA Academy, but he died just one month before Eric graduated and received his credentials as an agent. I remember as I was sitting there during the ceremony how much I wished Foster had lived just a little longer, because I'm sure he would have flown across the country to attend the ceremony, sick or not, because he would have known he was the reason we were there. 

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While I recognize that it's always a bad idea for a writer to write about himself, I thought I'd point out my own situation in order to relate it to Najee Ali. Although I've had my scrapes with the law, I think I would have made a much better cop than someone who didn't have a record because they grew up on a chicken farm in the boonies, because I've lived the life, and the same is true of Najee Ali.
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Thus, the little scrapes that Najee has had with the law means absolutely nothing to me, and it says absolutely nothing about who he is as a man – except, like me and my son, he has a little more insight into the struggles and hardships attendant to being a Black man in America - and that's an asset, not a liability.
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So we should never say what a brother or sister, "can't do." There's nothing in life that we can't do if we set our minds to it. What some may call Najee's "baggage", I call specialized knowledge. The adversities that he's endured in life only serves to make him more rather than less. A brother like Najee doesn’t have to speculate about the mindset of a young Crip or Blood, because he’s been there. So he's exactly the kind of brother that we need in office - someone who knows both sides of the street; who understands both our legitimate, and, underground culture. That's valuable knowledge that he'll be able to apply to whatever path in life he chooses to pursue. Life is not about what a Black person can or can’t do, life is about what we choose to do.
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So we've got to learn to stop selling ourselves short, and trying to define ourselves by the White man's standards, because the White man can't live up to the standards he sets for us himself. Donald Trump commits more crimes in one weekend than Najee has committed in his entire life. Think about it, Tim. Many people would have had something negative to say about you when you applied for the LAPD, but I'm sure that once you got in the organization you found that very few were living up to the standards that they demanded that you adhere to. Of course, I wasn't in your squad room, but I can make that claim blindly, because that's the life of a Black person in America, and over the centuries Black people have been indoctrinate into thinking of themselves just like White folks do - that somehow, we just don't measure up. 
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But Black people have got to learn to see though that game, because we do measure up - in fact, we more than measure up. That's exactly the problem that they have with us. They know that what we casually write-off as "soul", is nothing less than intellectual brilliance straining to be unleashed. We're the only ones who don't realize that. The White man learned that about us during slavery, and he's been obsessively concerned with that knowledge ever since. 
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When the White man first brought us over here in 1619, he thought he was merely importing a beast of burden. But as we began to adapt to his culture, he was shocked to find that our intellectual creativity was boundless, and we constituted a clear and present threat to his assumption of superiority. That’s why he passed laws making it illegal to teach Black people to read and write. He began to recognize that the very same intellectual creativity that allowed us to become masters in music and the arts, could also be applied to math, science, engineering, and politics. That recognition is what causes him to hate us so intensely. Thus, his racist attitudes toward us are not grounded in hatred alone, they're also grounded in fear.
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White bigots have been absolutely amazed by the power of Black intellect.

After suffering for generations from the ravages of smallpox that alluded all of his "great" medical minds and institutions of higher learning, an African slave introduced the knowledge of inoculation into society. That all but wiped out not only smallpox, but many other diseases in society. And in spite of their campaign to try to keep Black people uneducated, after the Civil War former slaves walked right out of the fields into the halls of congress. In addition, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, not only became a valued confidant of President Lincoln, but became celebrated as one of the most sought-after lecturer and intellectual of his time. He was also one of the first intellectuals to address the issue of equal rights for women. He was slated to appear at a women's rights conference the day he died - and at the time of his death he lived in a mansion on a hill that looked down upon the people who had formerly enslaved him.
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So White supremacists tried a different tact to limit Black people that came to be known as Jim Crow, a tactic that continues to this day. Knowing that a man can never rise above what he thinks of himself, the Jim Crow era was dedicated to a campaign of making the Black man think less of himself. 
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They used two methods to promote that campaign. First, they did everything in their power to convince the Black man that he was inferior; and second, they placed stern restrictions on the activities Black people were allowed to engage in other than singing and dancing, and then they rewarded us for excelling in those areas, thus, outlining “our place” in society. That’s why, to this day, many Black people have a hostility towards the pursuit of knowledge. We tend to say of an accomplished Black man with high self-esteem that “He’s bougie. He thinks he’s White.”, as though accomplishment and high self-esteem are limited to White folks. That’s why to this day, many Black people shun the pursuit of knowledge and focus much of their attention on their ability to sing and dance. We’ve been distracted to the point that many of us consider that “our place”.  We’ve been convinced that thinking "is a White thang."
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And I’m no exception. Ever since I was a child I’ve always liked to scribble out my thoughts. Before I could write, I used to draw my thoughts in pictures. I don’t know why, I've just always liked seeing my thoughts on paper. Then in my early twenties, after I got married, my late wife told me, “You, know, you’re not bad at this. You need to make this your thing.” I remember it like it was yesterday. I told her, “Sittin’ around tryin’ to write is for White boys.” Val was an Angela Davis-type sister at the time, so she just looked at me and said, “Man, you’re crazy. Do you think White folks are the only ones who have something to say? Go tell that shit to James Baldwin.” And she was right. So when I say we’ve been brainwashed over the years, I'm including myself. 
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We often use the word “brainwashed” as a pejorative term, but you don’t have to be dumb to be brainwashed. We’re all brainwashed to some extent in some area of knowledge. Brainwashing, or indoctrination, can be a subtle thing. It’s merely an attitude that we’ve accepted as true without taking the time to think it through. Like the belief that many of us accept that Jesus, who was born in the desert, was a blue eyed Scandinavian with blond hair. If that had been true they wouldn't have had to crucify him, he would have died of heat stroke, but many of us have been brainwashed into believing that nonsense. There are also a lot of us who still believe in walkin' dead men and talkin' snakes, because the White man taught it to us and we've never stopped to think it through.
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So with regard to Najee, his script is still playing itself out, and we have no idea where it's going to lead – he has no idea where it’s going to lead. At this point he doesn't see himself as a politician, because he's a humble brother, and he probably harbors a preconceived idea of what it means to be a politician and hasn’t bothered to take the time to fully think through the ramifications of what he’s currently doing. But the fact is, he’s already a politician, he's just not getting paid, and doesn’t have an office with his name on the door. But he'll come around, and if I have my way, I'm gonna help him to do that.
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We need to encourage talented brothers like Najee and not try to diminish them with negativity – and many of us tend to do just that. As I pointed out in a previous piece, although we often fail to recognize it, many Black people contracted a serious mental disorder during slavery, and it's been passed down through the generations over the years. It entails an innate distrust and disdain of our own people, a lack of focus, a seeming inability to prioritize, and the tendency to be disagreeable and hostile toward anyone who challenges the status quo. That attitude makes it next to impossible for Black people to come together and organize to improve our condition - and it also serves to insure the stability of this White supremacist system. So the White man has done his job well. He's successfully perpetuated self-hatred among a vulnerable percentage of dumb and weak-minded Black people - far from all, but more than enough to sabotage Black progress.

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Therefore, for exactly that reason, and regardless of what he says now, I'm going to keep on pushing Najee to formally run for office. Then, if he's elected, I'm going to continue to push him to run for even higher office, and to hire other talented brothers and sisters to help him carry out his mission. That’s the way a culture, and a people, move forward.

When Barack Obama was hangin' out on the block smokin' weed, who would have predicted that he would someday become a Harvard scholar and one of our greatest presidents? Very few, I assure you. But he did it. Presidential scholars voted him the 8th greatest president in American history -and he just left office, so his reputation is still growing, yet, they've already placed that brother up there among the founding fathers. Thus, Barack Obama is a living, breathing example of what we represent as a people. But as hard as it is to believe, we still have Black idiots running around trying to badmouth him because he wasn't Santa Claus. He was President Obama, not King Obama. It wasn't his job to go from house to house handing out gifts. His job was to create an environment conducive to our being able to go out and earn our own gifts - and the record will show that he did just that.
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Donald Trump and his band of bigots aren't obsessed with Obama's legacy for nothing. They clearly see in Barack Obama the threat that we represent to White supremacy. But we've been so brainwashed over the centuries that we don't recognize our own potential, and I'm convinced that's the case with Najee Ali. Some of our people badmouth him because they see him as just another “regular” like themselves. So they say to themselves, "Who is he to think he's good enough to hold office?" But any person who holds that attitude is only betraying what they think of themselves. Why shouldn’t a person like themselves hold office? Don’t they consider themselves capable of competence and worthy of trust? That attitude is a perfect example of centuries of brainwashing hard at work.
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So, I decided to expand on my original comment and save it as this blog so it'll pop up every time someone looks up Najee Ali on Goggle. And I guarantee you that I'll be presenting it to Najee (or maybe I should say, Representative Ali) at some later date. You can mark my word on that, because I’m a product of the street myself, and I see the writing on the wall.
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Thank you, Val.
Rest in peace, baby. 
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Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
.
Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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