Hello, Washington! It’s the real world calling. The shit’s about to hit the fan! Can you do something — anything — to stop us from falling back into a full blown recession?! All I ask is that you do what we elected you for…a little thing called your job.

In case you've been distracted by the media current obsession with the location of a particular CIA official’s penis which has led to another shocking revelation concerning the bedroom antics of an official that works for the FBI you may have missed the memo that we have 48 days for Congress to get their act together to prevent us from falling back into another recession.  Sequestration: get familiar with this word because it’s the hottest political issue in Washington outside of the TMZ style coverage that we’re currently getting.  In short it’s a formal term for mandatory cuts to federal programs. The process of cauterizing money that may have been authorized by Congress but is now prohibited from being spent. Literally, the money is being taken away from federal agencies.  This isn’t anything new and has been used in other budgets, but this is one of the biggest sequestrations of all time: 1.2 trillion in mandatory cuts—half from domestic programs, half from the military. This is the brain child of the brilliant Congress we had last year who used it as a punishment since the deficit super committee didn't come up with a complete package to cut the deficit. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. $500 billion will be automatically cut from military alone which is why the defense industry is lobby so hard to stop it. Not in the military and don’t care? Well if you’re one of the 2 million unemployed people in this country you will lose your jobless benefits at the end of the year. Not unemployed? Well guess what jobless benefits are the biggest return on investment when it comes to government spending because that money almost automatically goes back into the economy.  Letting this go would lead to growth being reduced by $58 billion and according to JP Morgan Chase, that would reduce the nation’s gross domestic product by .3%.  The top 5 states that would be affected by this are California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Considering that Storm Sandy is the most costly storm since Katrina, and how it’s almost crippled certain areas of New Jersey and New York, the sequestration will undoubtedly cause serious long-term problems for both state economies.

                How did this happen? Why weren’t we aware of us being days away from another American Recession? In the four weekdays before the election there were only 164 mentions of the sequestration on American television and radio. From November 6^th to November 9^th it was mentioned 735 times. Now that the CIA scandal has broken, it’s hardly regarded. It popped back into our minds after Speaker John Boehner’s public remarks on the fiscal cliff.

What Could Happen?

If Congress and the Obama administration allow the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts to occur, The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the economy will shrink by .5% and the unemployment rate would soar to 9.1% from the 7.9% we currently have today.

A House Divided.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) stated that, “The consequences of inaction will deliver a dramatic, short-term blow to the economy. We need to build a bridge over this fiscal cliff. We need to work together—Republicans and Democrats—on a solution that provides some certainty to American families and business, while also bringing down the deficit and debt.” His sentiments echo the CBO’s report/projections about the potential impact.  Dave Camp (R-Mich) said that the report “confirms that raising taxes on all taxpayers will result in fewer help wanted signs. Job creators agree and have made it clear that raising taxes will result in a weaker economy and fewer jobs.”  Senate Democrats want to retain current tax rates for incomes below $250,000 while increasing rates for higher-income earners. Republicans have been talking about making $1 million as a new tax threshold for the wealthy.

                Democrats want to use the new revenue from the tax increase—roughly $1 trillion—toward blunting automatic domestic and Pentagon spending cuts that start on January 2^nd, 2013. Cancelling the first year of spending cuts is a high priority for Boehner, the Republican House Leaders, and Defense Department officials. Boehner also doesn’t want the lame duck session to vote and thinks this should wait until the new year when the newly elected members of Congress have started while the Democrats don’t think this can wait.

What Do The Experts Say?

 I read the report myself and will make it available in a later blog post, but Dave Camp and the Republicans are doing a major play on words. Allowing ALL of the tax cuts to expire will hinder the economy but allowing some to expire does not necessarily lead to the doomsday scenario they would like to paint out. The CBO said the outlook would be more favorable if Congress extended some or all of the expiring tax cuts and blocked the $109 billion in spending cuts slated for discretionary and mandatory programs. If Congress blocked the spending cuts and extended all of the expiring tax cuts—minus the payroll tax—the economy would grow by 2.25 percent next year. Adding the payroll tax cut and an extension of unemployment benefits would nudge the growth closer to 3 percent. The report also notes that extending all of the soon-to-end tax cuts would provide the biggest boost to the economy. Continuing the breaks for all taxpayers would boost GDP by 1.5 percent. The Democrats proposal of extending for families making less than $250,000 and individuals earning less than $200,000 would expand the economy by 1.25 percent.

Stay tuned….tomorrow’s post is about the 5 different scenarios and what they mean for you and the economy!

In a perfect world, we would have sorted this fiscal cliff situation out last week. I mean it’s not like this isn’t something that both parties knew was coming. They in fact voted for it last year and the sequestration and tax hikes were designed to be so horrible that no one in their right mind on either party would even consider letting it happen. Unfortunately the same extremists with their all or nothing approaches that got us into this mess in the first place are still there. The fact is that think tanks and both parties have been debating FOR DECADES about tax code and entitlement reform. There is nothing new being said about anything and now is the time to make a decision and to compromise. 

We have seen the deficit reduction plans from Simpson-Bowles and the Gang of Six to the Grand Bargain all the way to the Super-Committee fail because the absolutists on either sides have decided that the balanced plans weren’t good enough. We’ve seen how this plays out and it’s time for people to suck it up and do what we elected them to! Democrats and Republicans listening to their all or nothing colleagues is exactly what lead to us having a downgrade in our credit rating.

 Lobbyists like Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform pledge has for whatever reason put nothing short than the fear of God into Republicans who have even considered crossing the aisle in an effort to compromise. You know who gives money to Americans for Tax Reform? From 2008 to 2011, the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for oil and gas companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil, gave $525,000 to Americans for Tax Reform. In a 2011 giving report, General Electric made a contribution of $50,000 to Norquist’s foundation that year. Consider that—GE gave more to Norquist in 2011 than it paid the IRS for income taxes in 2010, a year the corporation made $14.2 billion in profits. 

Republic Report noted last summer, Norquist’s foundation regularly receives large payments from the pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA—and Norquist deviates from his market values to oppose efforts to import cheaper Medicare drugs from Canada. Ironic? Early in the Obama administration, Norquist sent a letter to FedEx, demanding that the company back off of an anti-UPS campaign website it hosted to fight off a measure that would enable FedEx employees to join a union. It was a surprising move for a conservative like Norquist, who has praised draconian efforts to curb organizing rights in states like Wisconsin. Yet it’s less surprising given the fact that UPS, through its charitable foundation, gave Americans for Tax Reform $25,000 only months prior to the letter. Americans for Tax Reform sent a letter to House Republicans urging them to cut deeper into the anti-trust division’s budget at the Department of Justice, the same unit pursuing Microsoft in a high-stakes legal case. Microsoft paid Norquist $40,000 as a registered lobbyist.

Paul Krugman, a liberal writer for the New York Times, wrote that the president should “just say no, and go over the cliff if necessary” instead of participate in what he describes as an economic “hostage-taking” approach to negotiation by the GOP.  He goes on to say that nothing bad will happen a few weeks or months into 2013 so there’s time to bargain, “Stand your ground, Mr. President, ad don’t give in to threats. No deal is better than a bad deal.” Did you hear that? Yes, that was exactly what you thought it was. That my dear readers was the sound of a mouse pissing on cotton. No deal is better than a bad deal? Please read my previous posts that really only touched the surface level of what could happen if we don’t make a deal. Bottom line…no deal and the shit is hitting the fan and smacking all of us in the face. Our country’s credit rating will decrease, people will be fired, companies will not be hiring, consumer confidence will be shot. The next recession is at hand! The sad thing is he’s not the first liberal to suggest this. Some say let us go over the cliff then the first week the president will make a motion to pass a bill cutting taxes for everyone except the top 2% and bingo we win!

Everyone knows how a reasonable compromise works. We all know what this looks likes; spending cuts, revenue increase and entitlement reform. A last minute deal or patch job is better than nothing. The sequestrations are the elephants in the room for a lot of government workers. Don’t spend too much for Christmas because come January 1st you may not have a job. The fact of the matter is we have a president who for the last two years campaigned and won on the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy. The Republicans need to accept this and realize that more people in exit polls voted agreeing with this policy than who voted for our actual president. Give the people what they want!

Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma

Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma made the most sense out of anyone in his party when said that the GOP should focus on the greater good and make sure that the lower tax rates don’t expire on 98% of Americans at year’s end. Unfortunately his comment was seen as treason! What are the exact numbers that Republicans are fussing over? During the Clinton and almighty demi-God Reagan’s terms in office the tax rate for the top 2% was at 39%. Bush brought the rates down to 35%.

I could be stingy and stick to my guns and say well if it was good for Reagan and Clinton it’s damn sure good for you now. But common sense says that in a compromise you actually….you know, compromise. Close these loopholes the Republicans keep mentioning and then increase the tax rate by 2% to 37% and then an addition half a percentage point after 2 years while you reform the tax code or keep it at 37% and try and gain more leverage in the medicare and defense spending cuts! BOOM!

Unfortunately, we have a Congress that has decided that if their party can’t rule, they will ruin. If they aren’t the ones bringing in all of the success and achieving the glory they will try their hardest to sabotage at the expense of our country and our livelihoods. Years from now in American History books I hope the historians name this Congress something befitting of their clandestine and deplorable behavior.  Only expletives come to my mind at the moment so I’ll leave this task to someone wittier.

**check out my new blog marydtopolitics.com**

According to Twitter there were 28,003 tweets per minute at the conclusion of Obama's remarks. That's about double the number after Romney's acceptance speech last week, which was 14,289 tweets per minute at its peak. WOW. Michelle's speech was inspirational, graceful, humbling, poignant, and hit home for a lot of people. I have never thought that the spouse's speeches during national party conventions were the game changing speeches designed to convince swing voters to support the party's nominee. The spouses speech is more so a speech to renergize the base and remind them why this candidate is the one that's speaking to the heart of the party. I voted for Obama because I believed he was a different politician. He started as a community organizer and anyone that's done community organizing knows that it's a thankless and low paying job. You don't get a lot of respect from others in this field so the people that decide to stick to it are doing so because they believe in what they're doing and they are resolved to make a difference. Obama convinced me that he cared about me, my mother, my grandmother, my siblings, my brother fighting in Iraq, my veteran father and uncle. He made statements that weren't clouded by political tactics. He said things that were unpopular but necessary. Michelle reminded us of this man. The man she fell in love with, the man that loves his country and the dream it allowed him to live. This man, our president, lived the dream all of us can live and he's working to help make it not so hard. Helping each other when you can isn't a handout. Understand that life is hard and it's not getting easier, therefore, when you can do something for the people who need it most, it is your duty as an American to do so.

"We were so young, so in love, and so in debt."If you're in your 20's you know this student loan struggle is real. College costs are over-inflated and for many of us the degree on the wall is the equivalent to the price of our potential first home. I read an article a few weeks ago stating that we're the cheapest generation because we're slower to buy cars and homes than the generations that came before us. Hmmm, that $70k degree your college advisors told you would be worth it for the experience, alumni connections, and higher pay only led you to the $40k job in the big city where rent is $800 and your student loan payments are $600. Or you may be "lucky" and living rent free in your old bedroom at home, but this isn't the American Dream. This isn't what we thought of when we were growing up. This isn't how we wanted or planned on starting our lives or making our mark in the world. When hope is frail it's hard to live. I don't mean living in the organic sense of waking up, eating, breathing, and shitting. I mean really living. Reaching for your dreams, taking risks. It's hard when you know you have responsibilities and a burden of debt hanging over your head that our parents didn't experience until their 30's.

The dreamers are dying. While the Romney's say look to your parents for money or shop around, Michelle told us last night that she lived the struggle with her husband and they kept dreaming and working and fighting for the opportunities. Now look at them. The dream hasn't died, it's changed with the times but it's still ready for the taking. Like any parent the Obama's want more for their children and all of America's children. Obama wants to help us by giving us the same opportunities he had and even more. That's the American way. Paving the road for future successes for future generations. Not limiting our access to education by shrinking pell grants and increasing interest rates. Not by increasing taxes on the middle class and telling us to deal with it and wait for the wealthy to privately trickle down their generosity. Not by taking away the rights that women have over their own body. Not by telling the elderly that they have to choose between feeding themselves or medication because universal health care is too similar to socialism and you can make due without it.



Consider me re-energized.

 *Disclaimer: I wrote this about a month ago while playing my grandfather's old blues records on a record player with a glass of scotch in my left hand. If you follow me on twitter look at my tweets around the 15th of July. I haven't looked at it since and besides a spell check no editing has been performed on this post. You have been warned*

Blues guitar solos are the musical manifestations of sex. I tweeted that statement maybe 10 minutes ago but I’ve already changed my mind. Blues guitar solos are the musical manifestations of GREAT sex. You ever listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King’s Blues At Sunrise? It’s a 15-minute song that builds to one of the most heartfelt, soulful, and passionate climaxes that I’ve ever heard on a blues song. The first 3 minutes of the song focus on the guitar and the drums telling their own story about love and heartbreak, fire and ice. It entices you and brings you into the story that you instinctually create that just so happens to mirror exactly what you have going on at that very moment in your life. Whether its about sexual frustration and you imagine each stroke of the guitar string to be you being teased to the point of quivering at the same tempo he’s playing or you imagine your lover and the song becomes a soundtrack to the last time you touched and where it led. Blues is all about feeling and losing yourself in the music and allowing it to take you over without you needing to say a word. Now isn’t that the perfect lover? The one who knows exactly which buttons to push and when without asking or saying much? 

 

I’ve never played an instrument and I don’t know much about the technical jargon that would allow me to better explain blues to you, but I know what I like and I know what I feel. A great blues guitar player always strikes a chord within me and makes me feel something different than what I’m used to. Before I even knew about sex and listened to my first blues song, I remember thinking that every chord that was played, every key that was stroked, and every stick that came crashing down on the drum set made me want to get up and move. Not necessarily move as in dancing, but I had to get up and do something. You ever listen to music that refused to allow you to sit still? It’s almost as if the blues artist were sirens calling me to come closer and open myself up to this pure emotion. If you’re happy, sad, angry, in love, out of love, ANYTHING, listen to a blues song and watch your emotion become elevated and compounded. Notice how the sounds will reverberate through your body and call you to act upon whatever you’re feeling or cause you to work through it. This is the essence of music. The blues knows that life is music with an ever-changing rhythm and you have to sing, sing and even dance, the downs along with the ups. When a good bluesman plays something, they don’t just play it or say it, they make you BELIEVE it. There's so much feeling in the notes and in the words. No matter what mood I’m in, I can lose myself in the music. I also think the blues are a better American 20^th century history book than the watered down stories they tell you in school. Those scratchy old delta records take you to that hot, grim plantation and make you feel what they were going through better than any paragraph a scholar could put together. 

The genius of the music is the improvisation. This is not something just any great guitarist can do. If you listen to a live muddy water performance of a song and compare it to the studio version the improvisation varies ever so slightly but just enough to let you know that he’s vibing to the crowd. I don’t know much about music, I was never a musician or professionally trained but what I do know is the structure of the 12 bar blues form. It’s the perfect blueprint to play, write, and improvise over. You have the I-IV-V chord structure and the 3-line verse, which includes two identical lines and a rhyming response. Rock and Roll, country, pop, bluegrass, and more have borrowed elements from this genre. If you look at the history of this music you’ll see that it’s uniquely American and has led to the creation of popular modern day music. So if you ask me why I love the blues I’ll tell you that I love the blues because at my core I’m an artist and I live to feel and that’s exactly what this genre of music allows me to without any inhibitions. Just feel.

I want to start off by apologizing for my recent lack in new postings. I had this grand plan to completely redo the website and make it eye catching and appealing but the moment I started talking to a blog designer I realized how convoluted everything was. I've seriously been winging it!

I know I want to talk about politics but I also know that I want to talk about social and lifestyle topics related to the city. I also want to have a watchdog like element to the blog where I'm informing my readers on injustices in the community. With that said, "Musings of a Mack" just doesn't work anymore. I need a new blog name and a new tagline. I have one in mind, but I'm not completely sold yet, and I want to make sure before I pay someone x amount of dollars to build my website around a title only for me to change my mind 3 months later.

What's Coming:

I plan on writing an "official" article on the Trayvon Martin rally that took place in DC and my thoughts and opinions on it, Hopefully I'll be able to obtain some high resolution pictures, but don't hold me to it!

I also plan on adding a Weekly Watchdog Post of all the things you should be paying attention to that the main stream media is currently overlooking. I'm thinking of adding this post every Monday. What do you think? Would Wednesday or Friday be better?

I'm also going to take on a personal challenge of hitting up every spot on the Washington City Paper's Best of DC 2012 list. And yes pictures will be taken!

Sooooo.....what do you think about the upcoming changes? If you have any ideas for the new name or what you want to see from me in the future please let me know!! :)

Just wanted to share this awe inspiring video of the greatest live performance I've ever seen. Let us not lose focus of the amazing gift Whitney shared with us all. She was truely blessed and every time she sang she blessed us all with her talents. Just beautiful....

1. Zimmerman called the police to report Martin’s “suspicious” behavior, which he described as “just walking around looking about.” Zimmerman was in his car when he saw Martin walking on the street. He called the police and said: “There’s a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around looking about… These a**holes always get away” [Orlando Sentinel]



2. Zimmerman pursued Martin against the explicit instructions of the police dispatcher:

Dispatcher: “Are you following him?”

Zimmerman: “Yeah”

Dispatcher: “OK, we don’t need you to do that.”

[Orlando Sentinel]



3. Prior to the release of the 911 tapes, Zimmerman’s father released a statement claiming “[a]t no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin.” [Sun Sentinel]



4. Zimmerman was carrying a a 9 millimeter handgun. Martin was carrying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea. [ABC News]



5. Martin weighed 140 pounds. Zimmerman weighs 250 pounds. [Orlando Sentinel; WDBO]



6. Martin’s English teacher described him as “as an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.” [Orlando Sentinel]



7. Martin had no criminal record. [New York Times]



8. Zimmerman “was charged in July 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer. The charges appear to have been dropped.” [Huffington Post]



9. Zimmerman called the police 46 times since Jan. 1, 2011. [Miami Herald]



10. According to neighbors, Zimmerman was “fixated on crime and focused on young, black males.” [Miami Herald]



11. Zimmerman “had been the subject of complaints by neighbors in his gated community for aggressive tactics” [Huffington Post]



12. A police officer “corrected” a key witness. “The officer told the witness, a long-time teacher, it was Zimmerman who cried for help, said the witness. ABC News has spoken to the teacher and she confirmed that the officer corrected her when she said she heard the teenager shout for help.” [ABC News]



13. Three witnesses say they heard a boy cry for help before a shot was fired. “Three witnesses contacted by The Miami Herald say they saw or heard the moments before and after the Miami Gardens teenager’s killing. All three said they heard the last howl for help from a despondent boy.” [Miami Herald]




14. The officer in charge of the crime scene also received criticism in 2010 when he initially failed to arrest a lieutenant’s son who was videotaped attacking a homeless black man. [New York Times]



15. The police did not test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. A law enforcement expert told ABC that Zimmerman sounds intoxicated on the 911 tapes. Drug and alcohol testing is “standard procedure in most homicide investigations.” [ABC News]

The Martin case had been turned over to the Seminole County State Attorney’s Office. Martin’s family has asked for the FBI to investigate.
 
Information provided by HappyLiberal regarding his 5 Day Suspension, everything else was received in a chain email, if you know the original news source please let me know!...Thanks!
 
On that 5 day suspension smear.... here is what his teacher had to say...


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/os-trayvon-martin-shooting-tension-20120317,0,3347110.story

Quote

"He was extremely creative," said Michelle Kypriss, Trayvon's English teacher at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami. "He just loved building things. He really was intrigued by how things worked."



She described Trayvon, a junior, as an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.


Quote:

Trayvon was under a five-day suspension when he was shot that Sunday night, but Kypriss said it was due to tardiness and not misbehavior.



"Trayvon was not a violent or dangerous child. He was not known for misbehaving," the teacher said. "He was suspended because he was late too many times."


His favorite subject was math. He wanted to major in engineering and eventually become a pilot. He was attending aviation school part-time.