The Goat Pen

Professor Tiger wrote:i am amazed that a NYT op-ed writer - especially of the stature of Maureen Dowd - would write a piece so critical of Obama.

This is a sign of the apocalypse.

Nah, she loves Obama. She is just doing this so that the Reagan Democrats (the true moderates) who might be sick and tired of Democrat administrations can see that there is a huge difference between Obama and HRC (when there is no difference at all.) This is all political posturing to do everything and anything the media can to see to it that Hillary wins in 2016. That is all it is.

innocentbystander wrote:

Professor Tiger wrote:i am amazed that a NYT op-ed writer - especially of the stature of Maureen Dowd - would write a piece so critical of Obama.

This is a sign of the apocalypse.

Nah, she loves Obama. She is just doing this so that the Reagan Democrats (the true moderates) who might be sick and tired of Democrat administrations can see that there is a huge difference between Obama and HRC (when there is no difference at all.) This is all political posturing to do everything and anything the media can to see to it that Hillary wins in 2016. That is all it is.

While it is true that Hilary is going through the "distancing" process, let us not forget that there was a fair bit of nastiness between the Clinton and Obama clans going back to December 2007.

The Clintons never forget.

Johnette's Daddy wrote: This is an argument I don't get. White people kill white people. Hispanic people kill Hispanic people. Asian people kill Asian people. There were 13,646 homicide victims in the last reporting year. The majority of them were white, as was the overwhelming majority of their killers. Yet you never hear about the epidemic of white-on-white crime.

Again, there is no news or politics in it. White on white has been a problem for centuries and unless it is a serial killer (not sure why that is a whitey problem it seems but another day for that topic), it isn't news worthy.

Race is the easiest thing to make news and get people elected.

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James Owens, 1st African-American allowed to play football at Auburn University (1970)

Toemeesleather wrote:[youtube]iEbpmoWk1gk[/youtube]

Most Black Republicans held the same view as Barkley.

He's subsequently changed his registration to Independent, but Barkley has long expressed his desire to be the GOP candidate for Governor of Alabama. He bought a house back there in 2007 (even as he endorsed Obama) so that he could meet the residency requirements for a 2014 run.

He's a smart guy, but I think his two biggest obstacles will be:

1) His wife. I don't see white men in Red Level, Tuscaloosa or Phenix City supporting a black man who has a white wife.
2) His DUI conviction in 2008. Someone will dig up pics of him in a pink prison jumpsuit and it will be a hard optic to overcome.

Oprama's statist/socialist agenda has come full flower with the news today that the S & P 500 broke through the 2000 level for the first time in history.

Well done, comrade Kenyan.

No thanks to Brock, thanks to Texas.......

Toemeesleather wrote:No thanks to Brock, thanks to Texas.......

Of course, if you actually look at the chart from when "Brock" started in Feb, 2009, you see astronomical growth on the US line and mild growth on the Texas line . . . if something called the "Texas Public Policy Foundation" is to be believed.

I see that your mouth is much like the Lone Star state...

Of course, if you actually look at the chart from when "Brock" started in Feb, 2009, you see astronomical growth on the US line and mild growth on the Texas line . . . if something called the "Texas Public Policy Foundation" is to be believed.

On a percentage basis, going from +100,000 to +1,100,000 in only Texas is almost certainly something closer to be what could be considered "astronomical" than the entire country going from -5,000,000 to -350,000

I think the respective workforce sizes of Texas compared to the US is something like 13 million vs 150 million. So 1,000,000 jobs of 13 million or 12 million or whatever is like 7-8% growth while 4.7 million on 137 million is somewhere around 3-4% growth.

Why Black People are skeptical about police shootings, volume MMXIV-VIII-XXV:

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture ... %3Acontent

"Death of Handcuffed Louisiana Man Shot in Chest Ruled Suicide"

Y'all can click the link for the story. The gist.

1 - The young man was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser, with his hands behind his back.

2 - He allegedly had a gun in his waistband that the cops missed and managed to get the gun with his hands cuffed behind his back and maneuvered the gun to shoot himself in the chest.

3 - Except two different police reports say he shot himself in the back (no, the bullet exited his armpit - there's no exit wound in the back to confuse the cops.

Now, call me paranoid or a race-baiter or whatever . . . but first answer these questions:

A: How did the cops miss him having a loaded gun?

B: Why didn't he just shoot the cops with the gun, given that he had the drop on them?

C: Is it even possible to shoot one's self in the CHEST when your hands are CUFFED BEHIND YOUR BACK?

D: How do trained Law Enforcement officers confuse a shot to the chest with a shot in the back WHEN THERE IS NO WOUND IN THE BACK?

Even if it's legit and the kid managed to shoot himself in the chest (maybe he ricocheted the bullet off of the door frame), the cops should be fired for gross negligence and even grosser stupidity.

The success of the Texas economy can be attributed to:
a. The economic brilliance of Governor Perry.
b. The state's abundance of oil.

Was screwing around on youtube and ended up watching NBC's coverage of the assassination of JFK.

Fascinating how one can tell immediately that the reporters back then were journalists first - many of them started as beat reporters or war correspondents before transitioning to radio and TV.

Compare that to the dull-witted Ken dolls and vacuous news bunnies they have on air today . . .

Most amazing to me was how they refused to speculate that Kennedy was dead until the AP flashed an interview with 2 priests who gave Kennedy his last rites said that he was dead, 41 minutes into the broadcast, and then they waited for the official announcement 4 minutes later before they would confirm it.

Let the show begin, see if it'll stick......


The first research into the effects of oil and gas development on babies born near wells has found potential health risks. Government officials, industry advocates and the researchers themselves say more studies are needed before drawing conclusions.

While the findings are still preliminary, any documented hazards threaten to cast a shadow over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking -- the process of blasting chemicals, sand and water deep underground to extract fuel from rock that's helped push the U.S. closer to energy self-sufficiency than at any time since 1985.

Another tragic shooting of a young black kid that you will not see in the national media......ho-hum.


On Saturday, a Carroll County boy went to a football game with family members and had dinner at a restaurant with his grandmother. The next day, 13-year-old Nizzear Rodriguez was dead.

As he slept inside his family’s apartment, he was shot to death before daybreak Sunday, according to police. Hours later, a 17-year-old boy was arrested in the shooting death. Carrollton police said Monday the boy’s death may have been a case of mistaken identity and said there could be a second suspect.

“He was smart, intelligent, he always smiled and he loved to play basketball,” Nizzear’s aunt, Kanisha Osorio, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Never got in trouble, never hung around the wrong crowd. He was just a bright child.”

Outside the Chancery Lane apartment where her nephew lived, Osorio said Monday afternoon it was hard to believe the boy’s death was real. She last saw him Saturday when family members drove to Cobb County to watch Carrollton High School play football, she said. Early Sunday, a family member found the boy dead.

Carrollton police Capt. Chris Dobbs said Malik Davis, 17, of Carrollton, was arrested late Sunday night and charged with murder, burglary and possession of a firearm during the commission of certain crimes.

Of course OJ was the killer. Dear lord....

Toe's recent epiphany about gun violence is no doubt heartfelt, as is his touching sympathy for the victim and his family.

Unfortunately gun murder is rampant in our society and only sensational stories make the national news. Shootings involving authority figures, celebrities and politicians, hate crimes...but especially mass shootings such as Columbine, Newtown, and Aurora make the headlines.

Maybe, like toe implies, if everyday murders were burned into the nation's psyche things would change for the better. But it's a fact that there's little political will to put a dent in the 300-350 million estimated firearms spread across our fruited plain.