Steve

Haha..most definitely Kansas is a huge basketball state. Indiana is the same. War Damn Eagle. I actually like K State for a while. I like underdogs. They had some great seasons a while back and I was happyto see that. Wichita State have fielded some great b-ball teams.

King Kung. You obvioiusly have never lived in certain areas of America. First, the police instigate. They actually try and get you angry. I've been in it, i've seen it. You don't know me but anyone on here who has met knows I'm amiable. I was raised to respect adults, especially the police. I grew up in the inner city. I can't tell you how many times the police would stop me, either alone or with friends and call you stupid, etc. I'm a teenager mind you. Who is gonna believe a young black kid in the inner city? I was an adult in LA, I have been told by police while in a shirt and tie mind you, to kneel with my hands over my head for routine traffic stops. They try and degrade, insult, etc. certain people. The only difference these days its EVERYONE. Even if you comply you sometimes get hit or at the very least manhandled. The cops in the suburbs used to treat people totally different. I went to HS in the burbs my last year and a half and while in the car with classmates, from this upper middle class Republican area, the cops would stop them and they would mouth off to the cops. I'm stunned. Once you f*ck with the middle class, things happen. Cops know that. Google 'police brutality' and any group 'elderly', 'teenager', 'soccer mom', its everyone. Minorities have been saying it for years and everyone used to think 'oh, they must have done something wrong, every cop I've ever come across never crossed the line'. Cops aren't stupid. You know who can make trouble and you know who can't. Now, I hear ya. 'Well, the crime rate in those areas are so high, the cops have to be tough', City kids, no matter what race/ethnicity are hardwired to size up situations instantly. You have to. Your life may depend on it. I can tell a kid who is a gangbanger from a school kid instantly. They dress somewhat similar. Any cop on the beat for 6 months can tell. They can size up people instantly as well because thats their job. Cops interact with far more criminals than I ever did. Its their job. They know my friends and I aren't going to do anything, so why? Its a power thing. They do because they can. Simply as that. Lotsa of these guys want to work the inner city. How many jobs where you can go to the worst areas and stop and make any one , the toughest guy, do what you tell him to? Its a massive ego boost. I went to a church once with 3 cops, I've mentioned before. They told us there are cops who are on an ego trip and to be careful. Yes, some of it is racism. Not all, but some love the fact they can dominate guys who look like they could be in the NBA or NFL. I have seen cops stop by our basketball court in Norht Philly and just tell the biggest guys to come over and make them kneel wtih their hands behind their backs just to show everyone they can. It took me years not to hate cops. I saw too many things. I used to speak in a very even, moderate voice, using standard english and it made them wary of me. I was often asked if I was a lawyer. 'Officer, with all due respect, I've complied with all the legal demands of me. With all due respect, my occupation is not pertinent.'. I wanted them to think I may be, just for my own self preservation. You have no idea what its like, trust me on that. The cops you see beat someone down on a video do it all the time. Its not a one time thing, they just happened to be caught. My mom told us later the reason why she was adamant we speak respectfully was she saw a cop who was parked near a stop sign on our street and neighbors said cars were running the stop sign while kids were playing. She saw him pull someone over who ran the stop sign, no questions, just billy clubbed him a couple times. Philly had one of the highest incidents of police brutality as a kid. But meeting guys from other cities...Chicago...Detroit...Houston...Boston...I found it happened everywhere. There are some really great cops. I'm not saying all but there are too many of the bad ones. And they protect each other. The blue shield is real.

There may have been a girl in my area named Ebola..

As far as the Kansas thingy...I've had the pleasure of seeing about 40 of our 50 states in some form or manner and have pretty much gotten along with everyone. In the rural Kansas types of places, its assumed I'm going to be politically different than they are. I smile, I make small talk and as men there are two things men can ALWAYS talk about to build some form of cordiality: sports and women. Mainly sports. What I usually did was bring up college football in the midwest, south and rust belt. Its a religion there. I worked mainly in investment companies for most of my working life and I had clients all over. I would always get a smile on their faces when I said 'I have one question and one question only. Are you a Jayhawk fan (Unif. of Kansas) or a Wildcat fan (Kansas State). Whatever the answer is, I'd say 'Fine, we can get along then'. Internationally, football (soccer) has been the greatest thing to break down barriers. I love the sport so its easy to see and I get a 'pass' as an American. Its assumed I'm going to be the 'ugly American' lol...sometimes they don't assume it because I'm black and assume I'm going to be different because of our history. it depends. I love people though. I love meetng all kinds and I always learn something.

Ebola came out of nowhere in 1976. As far as I know, there has been no recorded/reported evidence of Ebola type disease being reported by Europeans or being told of by native Africans. My belief its human made. Same as HIV. The two groups that HIV was prevalent with was Africans and gays in America. Two distinct and separated groups. America has the most advanced technology in diseases than anyone where else hands down. In hindsight its known that the USSR came no where close with bio-weaponry. America has things such as the neutron bomb that Carter talked about that kills people in cities and leaves the building standing. I don't think the President knows. I think there is a shadow group within certain departments of America. They leave the president out under the guise of plausible deniability. These people are there no matter who is in the white house. So, they don't care about Republican or Democrat.

THIS is what ALL Americans should really be worried about. Everything else is subterfuge, deflection, a ruse...

This lawsuit thingy is so much complete bullshit. The reality is that some of these tea party pols are from districts that have been gerrymandered to guarantee one kind of voter so they are 'safe'. Teir ONLY job is just to f*ck with the President on anything. Obama is f*cking up on his own in a variety of things but comes out looking better because some of these Republicans are just so far out there. The senate is particularly troubling. Historically the far more reasonable of the two houses. How someone like Cruz from a big state like Texas can be so whacky is reminiscent of the '50s McCarthy era. What ever one thinks of Obamcare (and I am on record that national health care or at the very least a massive change in how we distribute and pay for health care needs to be changed) it will become permanent and it will be accepted and to some definable degree it will work. Maybe not to the extent it should but it will change. Obama play chess while his opponent sometimes plays checkers. He has embraced the term Obamacare once meant to criticize it. Why? He knows it will be come a permnent part of America and thereby making himself part of history in the positive. It will be known as that and its going to help his legacy. My guess is history will make Obama out to be a victim of Republican hating. Just my guess. The country has no strategic long term plan for success. Short term politicking is kiling us as well as corporations and industry lobbies stifling any progress. For example, America should have been one of the first countries with high speed/bullet trains. The eastern corrider screams forit. Especially Boston to Washington DC where you have Hartford, NYC, Philly and Baltimore in between. France, Korea, Japan, and other countries have excellent high speed systems. The airline industry has killed any start of it behind the scenes. The car industry as well. Old technology has power to kill new technology these days. We wouldn't have progressed from rail to car to planes at the rate we did if this same power was possible a 150 years ago.

I was reading an article about the Republican's impeachment voices. The article was saying they know there aren't any impeachable offenses but if they say it enough, where there is smoke strategy because the American people aren't really too smart, etc. Anyway, it got me thinking about prior impeachments and attempts to impeach. I considered the Clinton one totally without merit if we take precedence into account. Impeachments if you really believe them should be a crime/misdemeanor so egregious even a President's allies/own party will bow to it. Party lines voting is usually a sure sign its bullshit. Clinton was charged with lying under oath. Perjury. However, he perjured himself in a civil trial. Impeachment is clear. Its high crimes and misdemeanors from abusing your power as President. There are two people in one in the White House. The President and the private citizen who has the same rights as everyone else. Clinton was not representing the office of the President in that that testimony and there are two precedents for it. One of the articles of impeachment against Nixon was tax evasion. Open and shut but the Republicans sucessfully argued that he lied on his tax return as a private citizen. He was not using his power as President. His tax return was his personal business and one could charge him after his presidency but not as a crime done using his power as president. Second, Aaron Burr, a sitting VP of he US killed Hamilton, the sitting Secty' of the Treasurer in a dual in NJ. Dueling was outlawed in the state. Burr's enemies gave a NJ warrant to the Congress asking for Burr's arrest and extradition to NJ. Congress said, Burr's duel was a matter of personal honor and he was not representing the office of the Vice Presidency so it had no standing before Congress. Clinton's perjured testimony was the SAME. He was acting as William Jefferson Clinton in a civil suit, he was not giving testimony as President. Its also interesting to note that when Goldwater and others went to Nixon and said he didn't have the votes to fight impeachment that only 15 of the 42 Republican senators were willing not to convict, I find that utterly amazing and appalling. Caught on tape, indisputable evidence of a crime using the office and 15 senators were still willing to put party over their sworn duty. I've been trying to google who they were (and give them a stern finger wagging if they are stil alive) but I couldn't find them. Can anyone?

Unfortuntely the race card agan. http://io9.com/anti-marijuana-laws-were-based-on-racism-not-science-1500321449 The truth is that our perceptions of marijuana—and in fact all of our drug laws—are based on early 20th century racism and "science" circa the Jim Crow era. In the early decades of the 20th century, the drug was linked to Mexican immigrants and black jazzmen, who were seen as potentially dangerous. Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (an early predecessor of the DEA), was one of the driving forces behind pot prohibition. He pushed it for explicitly racist reasons, saying, "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men," and: "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." The main reason to prohibit marijuana, he said was "its effect on the degenerate races." (And god forbid women should sleep with entertainers!)

Chelseafan, what are your thoughts on Fabregas. He's my favorite player. He's a die hard gooner as you know. Do you guys 'trust' him?

We did. Sanchez. Its said he will be used as a striker. He was converted to winger at Barca, he is naturaly a striker. A dcm is what is needed. Not sure about our left side. Campbell, the Costa Rican winger perhaps. Lots of pace in the team now. If its Walcott and Campbell on the wings, they are going to be keeping a lot of full backs busy. Gibbs and Debuchy are very quick as well. The flanks have pace. Sanchez is very quick.

Does anyone REALLY know why we had the drug laws on pot in the first place? Look at the history of drug laws in America. The reason why we have them. In the first century of this country you could put what ever you wanted into your body. There were no restrictions. Many 'tonics' had opiates, etc. in them.

Its the 100th anniversary of WW1. Not really a world war since it was only in Europe but as westerners we believe anything where we are central is the world..hehehe...any way, its unlikely we will ever see a war between the major countries these days. By major I mean the largest economies. As much as we may not like it we are all infinitely connected and symbiotic than ever before. A war, and I mean even a conventional war, will result in no winner. The global economy would go into a deep world wide recession and possibly depression depending on the length of the war. THe only ones that won't are wars against non significant economic powers. If you notice America's wars are against minor economies in the modern era. A war between any G8 nation would have a very serious global economic impact. It truly is the macro version of the 'if a butterly flaps it wings in Asia, a typhoon will happen in elsewhere' or something to that effect.

For the record, I will state, an unsecured border, especially given today's world is insane. 200 years ago it was barely an issue, in fact it was a plus. The far west needed people. Given today's world and America specifically its bat shit crazy. BUt as I said, there are forces that want it open for their own selfish reasons (and those forces aren't liberals). Securing the border MUST also be done while other changes are made. Unrestricting the importation of many foods to counter the sharp increase in food prices. Sending the ones here back is pretty much a non starter. Why? First, they are needed for the economy in many places. Illegals have to shop too. They even shop at WalMart, Costco and other major US companies..lol. Another reason is that they are also de facto humitarian aid to Mexico and central America. These countries NEED to stay economically viable for the security of the region. Remittances (money from residents living abroad) is vital. 20% of Mexicans recieve the 25 billion dollars of money sent mainly from America. http://geo-mexico.com/?p=3028 Send them back and you will have a bigger problem down the road. The cost of everything would rise dramatically in California and the border states and California is the base of the U.S. economy. By itself its a G8 nation, bigger than Italy to give you some perspective. It WILL trigger a major recession from hyper inflation of wages, housing costs, etc. if you rounded up everyone and sent them back then accept the economic consequences. The housing industry would take a major hit, all sorts of industries and especially certain regions. Trust me, agriculture, restaurants, etc. do NOT want amnesty either. It automatically drives up the costs of labor, with the additional cost of vacation time, etc. Basically, what I'm saying is totally securing the border has to be a planned event for all the related issues. The Law of Unintended Consequences will happen if its not planned right, the law says solving one problem (without analysis) creates a bigger, unforseen problem (or problems..plural).

First, you are making a blanket statement that anyone who doesn't want to shoot these people are saying they are victims. Taking some view of perhaps some immigrant advocacy group and applying it ad hoc. Everyone has said its illegal to come into this country without going through the legal route. You think its so called LIberals that keeps the border porous? No, its those right wing corporations that benefit off the cheap labor. Reagan had one of the biggest amnesty programs in history...yes, that liberal, homo communist conservatives have made into semi deity status. Find me where liberal congresspersons vote against securing the border? 2000-2006, we had all 3 branches of government de facto Republcan. 911 happened so they could have used terrorism as an excuse to secure the border.Why didn't they? Wasn't liberals, explain why it didn't happen? The estimated cost to secure the border fully is about 28 billion by some estimates. http://www.businessw...der-isnt-pretty Not much when you look at the entire budget and the social/infrastructure costs (schools, hosptials, etc.) of the problem. Why isn't it approved. No bill has been introduced. Why hasn't it? Its not a liberal vs. conservative issue. That's the simple answer but its bullshit. Being against a strong border isa politically death sentence even for liberals. What to do once they are here is ideoogical but find me a politician who advocates not securing the border. Some have went for the sucker punch reaction of blaming 'liberals'. The real truth is powerful industries WANT the border unsecure. Drugs coming across are a compromise. Agriiculture in America is corporate. Its not mom and pop farms any longer. Its big business. America has restrictions on all kinds of imported fruits and vegetables to protect corporate farms. They need these workers because a. No U.S. citizen or resident alien will do it and b. they can't afford to (in their view) to pay Americans who would. If we did, we would have to accept dramatically high food prices (unless we unrestrict imports). Construction companies. Restaurants, etc. a whole host of various industries and businesses use them from the indivdual undocumented Honduran woman to the Cargill corporation mega farm covering thousands of acres so big you would literally die trying to find your way out. The unsecure border is a business issue. Pure and simple.

So the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who have entered on student and tourist visas with the intention of staying illegallly should be shot too? If we are being fair and applying shooting equally?

Wtf? http://www.dallasblack.com/communityChannel/kkk-reaches-african-american-community-fight-illegal-immigration

Obama has done worse than I (and probably others) expected. I think the Obama we thought we were getting sold out during the general campaign after he got all that Wall Street money. That said, I would personally say he was the 2nd or 3rd best President in the last 30 years or so. Clinton was better and depending on your view, Reagan. But, to me at least, better than both Bushes. Also, in hindsight, can anyone say with a straight face that McCain and...gulp...Palin...would have been better? Even Romney. Romney was a complete agent for the top 1%. The fact that he wanted to give the military 1 trillion dollars in his proposed budget, money the miitary didn't ask for want. Top generals were saying they had no way to spend it if they had, it would more of a burden than a boon. That money was going to go to Haliburton and the rest of the miitary-industrial complex. We certainly would have been in embroilled in all the Arab spring revolts. My guess is and I don't think I'm too far over the top but we 'd probably have troops on the ground in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and definitely would not have demilitarized our opporations in Iraq. We'd have tons of troops there and Afghanistan. Not sure I even want to imagine what that America and world would be like. Had Romney won, we'd be run de facto by the Tea Party...I don't even wanna think about that.

Obama has done worse than I expected. The OB

http://jezebel.com/man-says-southwest-airlines-kicked-him-off-plane-over-t-1609982375?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow Man Says Southwest Airlines Kicked Him Off Plane Over Tweet Complaint

We were in great shape in '08? lol...near financial collapse, embroilled in two wars, one of whch was totally unecessary. Yep, the good 'ol days

...there seems to be a systemic program of class and ethnic/race warfare in America. Its the divide and conquer tactic. The poor white guy in West Virginia has the same issues as the poor Black guy in South Central LA but vote opposite parties. I may sound like a conspiracy theorist but I think the goal is to keep us all battling while the elite pull the strings, keep power and use all of us for their own personal gain.

Not ashamed either. Very proud to be an American even though I'm not proud of some of its history. Brainwashed from years of civics class? Perhaps but I look at America in its own context as a world leader in its era. Comparatively speaking to other nations who ruled its era or were one of, America stacks up pretty damn well Apples to apples comparison. That said, the truth about work is not so simple. Look at areas that have high unemployment and social welfare when any business or agency has job openings. Lines around the block. Yes, some don't want to (and I'll touch on that later) but people want to feel good about themselves. When I lived in LA, I used to flirt with the girls at this call center in Santa Monica. They were paying 14 bucks an hour and Compton residents and east LA residents would get on a bus at 6am morning to get there by 8. There are no livable wage jobs in the inner city or rural America any longer. Jobs that support a family simply aren't enough of them in West Virginia, Kentucky where there are decades of generational poverty and the jobs in the inner city have dried up. During WW2 tens of thousands of Blacks migrated from the deep south to Chicago, Detroit, etc. for the relatively high paying war tme jobs. Lets look at being paid not to work. No one asks why there are such programs. Certainly poor people didn't devise these plans or had input in them. Blacks have been the face of welfare but social welfare was not a demand from the civil rights era. That struggle was simply about societal equality. In fact, when Johnson created a panel to look at the high poverty rate amongst Blacks, the Moynihan report as well as other independent studies said, if you want to stop the increasing single motherhood, teen and youth pregnancy, etc. that started to increase, keep the Black family intact and the Black male working. Jobs are needed for the Black male. It will cut crime, single motherhood, etc. basically a panacea. When the riots occurred in northern cities in the late 60s across America a panel investigated and found one common demand: Jobs. So what did the government do? It made AFDC where the woman gets the money and said if a male over 18 is on the premises you do not get paid. It did the exact opposite of all the studies. One has to ask why? A cycle of poverty was created and I hate to sound cliche'd but we blame the victim these days of wrong government policies. Its very easy to solve inner city crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy. Not a panacea but this will reduce it dramatically. Infrastructure spending. The cities need it, very good paying jobs, tens if not hundred of thousands of jobs. All kinds of jobs. American jobs, and they will spend in that community which in turn creates a tax base for the schools, local economy better housing, etc. One has to ask why Congress doesn't want to pass it?

It doesn't want to. People don't realize that a lot of industries rely on this labor. Agricultural industry, restaurants, factories (the few that haven't relocated outside of America), etc. A farm once tried to hire Americans and pay a decent wage, in the teens per hour I think. They couldn't get enough people and the fact is no one wants to do 3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) jobs anymore. EVERY nation in history that ruled its era did so on slave and/or cheap labor. Every one of them. Blacks no longer provide free labor and since the '60s can't be kept out of the mainstream so America needed a new labor force. If illegals didn't come the price of food would go up dramatically. Its a fact. Companies don't want the border secured. The US government knows this and agrees. The drugs are a necessary evil and byproduct of it. The fed goverment is f*cking over the border states because they have to deal with the issue. In LA, its common place that a kindergarten class or 1st or 2nd grade is scheduled to have a certain number of kids and ends up with up to 50 percent more than it does. Hospitals are overwhelmed. The states have a legit case for a lawsuit but its all part of the system of denial. It won't come to anything. Illegal latinos aren't stealing any jobs. They are doing the work that none of us want to do. I'm NOT saying illegal immigration is good. Its not. Its insane to not know who is coming into your country but the fact is though that if the anger is over lost jobs it isn't. They perform a necessary function. The over extended infrastructure is what we should be angered about. Also, the crime angle is false. I've seen the stats, anyone can google it. Illegal immigrant crime rate is much, much lower than society in general. Drug/gang members are coming across and that is the 'necessary evil' the government puts up with but their numbers in comparison to the total is infintismal. There is a bias with regards to illegal immigration. The government knows where the estimated 10,000 illegal Irish are in Boston and the estimated 50,000 in NYC. No one bats an eye. They operate openly. Not picking on the Irish. Just saying that our anger is selective. Ther are also thousands of Europeans who have come over on student or tourist visas and simply overstayed the tourist visa or never matriculated in the school. No one looks for them as well. Why? Hmmm.....

Eric Garner was NOT selling cigs at the time of his death. He was breaking up a fight and the witnesses around him corroborated. Common sense says that they know what is going on and right. Inner city residents do not protect criminals. We were the victims of them and you never see people telling cops not to arrest a robber, mugger, murderer, gangbanger etc. sole exception is their family/gf but not the whole crowd. We are glad to see those guys off the streets. The cops know this. They aren't stupid. They wanted to pad their arrest ratio so they were taking him in anyway. The whole cigs seller thing is a deflection for the brutality. When I was a kid, cops didn't care about stuff like that anyway. why? they knew people were poor and needed a side hustle. As long as it wasn't stolen merchandise they didn't care. Most of the cig stuff is bought legit from neighboring states and sold in the city. Cops would sometimes even buy some. There was always an underground economy. There was always a back alley where a guy would change your oil, tire, car maintenence. These guys were often ex cons who couldn't get a job because they had a record. The whole neighborhood went to these guys, he charged a fraction of the price and had his own tools or if he needed something from the auto parts, he'd go with you to pick out the right part. In those days the cops were bad but they had a code to some extent. Today, none...and its not minoriities anymore, its everyone. Youtube 'police brutality'; + take your pic of soccer mom, teenage girl, elderly, even handicapped and you'll find a video. Also, if a cop is committing an act on video, its a certainty he's done the same multiple times and just happened to get caught that one time on video. Inner city minorities were easy pickings for cops in the old days. No one cared. The cops in the suburbs were the ones that visited your kindergarten class and treated you nice. Everyone assumed 'those inner city people are all criminals anyway' that was mentality. No one could believe cops would arbitrarily abuse anyone. I saw it first hand and on a few occasions was ...this close....to being on the end of some sort of issue. As I said before, my parents would have killed me if I talked back to a cop. It was yes sir or officer and you did what you were told. The cops, depending on his mood would instigate things. The cops in Philly would say 'hey stupid', etc. just to bait you. or call you 'boy' knowing its a buzzword. Now, its hitting everyone and people are slowly realizing that police abuse inner city folks complained about for decades was in fact happening to the innocent as well.