I just wanted to post a quick thank you to those individuals who came to my defense on this post by Rutabaga Ridgepole. I simply forgot that some have moved on after the 2008 Presidential Primary season while others linger in self pity. It really makes sense after I went back to the post to read how  much agreement there was with Lalo. I see that those who didn't like Jimmy Carter's words in the Primary don't like his words now. I have asked Lalo to let it go.  And now I am asking Mr. Rutabaga Ridgepole a.k.a Jacob Freeze to let it go, move on and grow up.

It doesn't matter how many times you spew venom at me, toward Obama or anyone who might support him, it will not change the fact that he won the Democratic Primary and ultimately the General Election.

Thank you Van Jones! Thank you for being a selfless person. Thank you for remaining in the fight for health care reform, and thank you in the pursuit of green jobs for people often over looked. 

At the annual Bioneers convention in 2007, Van Jones described to an audience of scientists, activists and environmentalists how he had spent 20 years trying to get Americans to pay attention to the urban poor.

"We would call newspapers, television stations, saying kids are dying, we're going to funerals every weekend. 'Not interested.' We'd say we've got kids going to school in Oakland, 30 kids in the classroom, six books, no chalk. 'Not interested.' "

Finally, the Yale Law School graduate turned community organizer told the crowd, "We said, 'Well, we want green jobs and not jails for our youth.' And they said, 'Green? Green? Green! Give that man a microphone!' "

"Green," at least in the beginning, was a marketing term to Jones, a means to an end. But the deeper he got into it, the more he realized that the environment was central to the social justice he cared about.

For the affluent leftists in the audience, he teased, environmentalism might be about polar bears and other "charismatic megafauna." But "in the poor part of town, when they say, 'Oh, the environment is terrible,' they're talking about air pollution, asthma, cancer clusters and birth defects."

Stay strong brotha!

When Joe Wilson yelled those now infamous two words, I was looking for some historical context. Again, I have never seen a member of Congress yell during a Presidential address to a Joint Session of Congress---even though I wanted someone to tell Bush he was lying because that is exactly what he was doing.

According to Politico (not the most Democrat friendly site) says that the GOP has reprimanded Democrats during Reagan's presidency. What happened to Joe Wilson has origins in what happened to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and former Rep. Jim Traficant (D-Ohio).

I really don't know but there is an interesting wrinkle to how some people may have mis- calculated the size of the "Birthers, Deathers and Tenthers on 9/12. I guess Glenn Beck didn't count on African-Americans holding an event called the Black Family Reunion on the National Mall at the same time. 

What no one has noted is that two-thirds of the National Mall was filled by an entirely separate event on Saturday that had nothing to do with protesting the president. September 12 just happened to be the 24th Annual Black Family Reunion which ran from 7th Street all the way to the Washington Monument.

To be sure, African-American, Latino, native Americans and all people marginalized from the MSM have an opinion about health care reform. Just in case anyone thinks we all hold the same opinion, I will assure you that I have verbal volleys with other African-Americans on why a robust public option is only one step in health care reform.

This is just one of the questions posed by Frank Rich in his op-ed in the New York Times. Yeah, what would or did Joe Wilson say about Mark Sanford's behavior? Has he said anything?

Some think critiquing President Obama will earn them one of the most infamous tittles in America: racist . I think Frank Rich--a southerner no less---does a very fair job of critiquing President Obama. He isn't the only one.

And by the wiay, Frank Rich believes, as I do, that President Obama had too much of a hands-off approach to health care reform this past Summer. 

So it isn't true that "anyone who disagrees with President Obama is labeled a racist."