The Rush

Rush Limbaugh has made his living by been a spokes person for the GOP. His conservative radio show is loved by Republicans and disliked by Democrats and sometimes by Minorities. It’s not new news that controversy sells, and pushing every topic to the brink brings 2 parties sometimes 3 to the table. The party that likes the message, the party that dislikes his message and the party that just wants to listen in and hear the chaos. With this type of approach, Rush has made millions and now he is at a point where he wonders how to invest all that money, enter in the NFL.

The NFL is like the stock market but 20 times better. The owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers Purchased the team in the 1930’s for less than $10,000, and now the team is worth over 850 Million Dollars. Same thing with the Dallas Cowboys, the team was purchased for about 300 Million Dollars and is now worth over a billion. If you are a good owner in the NFL, you can triple your money by having good management, and even bad owners in the NFL still see a lot profits, due to revenue sharing. To you non football fans, it means all the moneys the league makes outside of ticket sales and jersey sales is shared by all teams.

The problem now is, Rush is facing a little bit of a backlash from black players in the NFL. Don’t quote me on this, but black players; make about 60 to 70 percent of the players in the NFL. Now his words might be coming back to bite him. The fact that he has pushed the envelope on a lot of race issues has sometimes made him look like a racist. I don’t need to put his words on display, a simply google search on Rush will get you all the information on him. At least 7 black players have come out and said, “I will not play for a team owned by Rush”. And I am sure more want to talk, but might be taking a silent approach. The NFL Players executive director DeMaurice Smith, also has voiced his opinion, and his opinion is one a lot of players listen to, since he is the one who helps the players get paid. So now Rush finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Should he scale back on what has made him a multi millionaire to possibly help him double his money, while alienating his fan base? Or should Rush simply forget his NFL dreams and do what he does best? Well only Rush can answer does questions. But one thing is clear to me; he will have to do something, because he can’t eat his cake and have it too.

But before I finish this, let me add my extra 2 cents. If Rush and his group do purchase this team, I think finding black players to play for him won’t be as hard as some think. He might have to start out by over paying for players. But first things first, white, black or any other skin color out there, the only color that matters is green. When you play in a league where your life expectancy is 3 to 5 years, then you goal is pretty simply, make as much money as you can, and as fast as you can. Black men have worked for many racist white meni. All you have to do is talk to the black men in their 60’s and 70’s and they can tell you stories all day. The days of using colored bathrooms, and colored water fountain and sitting in the back of the bus. Not to say Rush owning a team, will take black men back to those days, but my point is, when it comes to taking care of yourself and your family, whether your boss is a bigot is the last thing on your mind. We are not talking about $10 per hour; we are talking about millions of dollars. And professional sports are  the only venue, where you can go to college for 4 years or less and instantly become rich. So simply put, as long as Rush doesn’t go into the locker rooms and starts making black jokes, then finding black players to play for him shouldn’t be a problem.

Since this was written, Rush has been dropped from the Group trying to purchase the team. I don’t know if I should feel bad for him or not. I am not in the sympathy game when it comes to someone who makes millions a year, but in the same regard, I am sure he will use the situation to fuel his show for the future and possibly even make more, so how can you sympathize for Rush. Do I think he was black balled? Well I am undecided on that subject, but this much is true, as long as Rush keeps up the fight on his show then his entrance into the fraternity that is the NFL will not be happening anytime soon or ever.

The Chosen Spokesmen

It is easy to see majority of the Fox news commentators are conservatives. But for the most part, news is supposed to be non-bias, but it seems Fox didn’t get that memo. We have gotten to point now where the White House and Fox news are throwing jabs back and forth. There was news that Fox news was one of the last to post on their site Obama as President after the elections, I think even TMZ called the elections before they did. Now I am not sure what the angle is with Fox news, but the angle they are taking at the moment is that of sore losers. I spend a lot of time roaming the big 4 as I like to call it, CNN, ABC news, CBS news, and Fox news. But when you go on Fox it seems they usually have something on Obama to try to paint him as unfit. Acorn, the Olympics, Stimulus Fund, Health Care Reform, Obama talking to schools kid and etc. Now the other sites talk about these same issues, but it seems Fox always takes a negative spin on all issues involving Obama. To a point that’s still fine, but now you have Fox News commentators taking it to the next level.

One commentator called Obama a raciest and that he hates white people, because of the issue that happened with the Harvard professor and the cop. Let’s not let the fact that his wife is black and that his skin is a little darker cloud our judgment. To me Obama is whiter than he is black. He was raised by a white mother and later by his white Grand Parents.  He spent limited amount of time with his black Father.  Growing up he dated white women. And for the same guys who call him a racist are also the same guys who say Obama began his Presidential Campaign in William Ayers home, who by the way is white.  Another Fox commentator said Michelle Obama should be involved in a Lynching Party, “WOW”.  It got so bad that one of their commentators lost some of his advertisers. There should be no place for such non-sense in the news. If you dislike the man’s politics because he is a democrat and you aren’t then that’s fine. But right now this is hitting below the belt. Not only do some of this guys sound like idiots, they are coming off as racist.  What they don’t understand is Obama won the Minority vote, because they finally see a man who resembles them. A guy who possibly during his younger years was picked on for having a darker skin, someone who has probably been called racial names. He was raised by a single parent. You know issues that minorities sometimes deal with on a daily basis. So when they attack his politics and then the man, it is like Fox News is choosing to pick a fight with the Minority Groups in America and that’s not a smart move. The GOP as they sit already gets a bad vibe for being a party that just represents the good ol boys. The younger generation feels left out and so does minorities. But when you have spokes people like Rush, saying things like, this is Obama’s America because on a school bus some black kids beat up a white kid, insinuating Obama is all about white kids being beat up by blacks. Or Fox News going out of their way to find all sort of negative news to dis-credit Obama as being the President or it’s employee speaking without thinking, well then if the GOP on the next set of Elections still can’t get the younger crowd or minorities on their side, then they know who is responsible.

President Bush didn’t get this type of attacks, even though he came in when the country had Trillions in surplus, now we are the United States sponsored by China.  More American Kids have died in Iraq than September 11. We have spent at least 1 Trillion in a war in Iraq we shouldn’t have been in, the recession, taking oversight away from Banks and other big companies, so they can stick it to the middleman, and for all their good work, he gave them TARP.  Which by the way a lot of the companies who received that money don’t have to pay back. So if Bush never got the shaft from Fox news then why is Obama?  That’s a question I can’t answer, but one thing is clear, the more they attack the Man, instead of his politics they will be one of many reasons people will stray away from the GOP.

The Palin Approach

Sarah Palin has to be one of the smartest people in America these days. Now during the Presidential election I was not sold on her. Due to the little amount of publicity she received in her state of Alaska, being on the main stage was a big change for her. I am not sure who was to blame for that, but she was a candidate who was not ready. Not being ready shouldn’t be a problem for Sarah now. When she retired from her post a lot of people took a swipe at her, but I thought that was a genius move.  I had no problem with her quitting her job when her sights are set on the White House. So far she is playing the same card Obama did, traveling around the country, even abroad, she is on twitter, wrote a book and right now since she is not a public servant she is doing things to get her name in every household. Simply put, Brilliant. While Obama is currently being criticized by everybody these days, she is just gliding through, and using this opportunity to feel the tone of the American people.She traveled to China and gave a speech there and was widely accepted and welcomed. She is currently campaigning on behalf of her GOP colleagues and she has also been on record as saying, she will campaign for Independents and Democrats if they share the same belief. This is a change from the Sarah we were introduced to late into the presidential elections last year. You know the Sarah who got embarrassed by Katie Couric, Mrs. I can see Russia from my back yard. This Sarah looks real confident and right now, she seems to be gaining a lot of fans to be the first female President of the United States. I am not saying if she ran she will win, lets not forget she will still need to win her Primary in her Party and I won’t be surprised to see one or two of her GOP counter-parts attack her with the fact that she quit her job as the Governor of Alaska, has a daughter who has a child out of wedlock, got into war of words with her grandson’s dad, and etc. I would like to see how far she gets, but personally for me unless she tweaks her politics, she might still have some trouble grabbing the White House in 2012.

For Sarah to win the White House, she will have to do something no Republican president has done in a while and that’s to get some minority vote. Close to 80% if not more of Minorities voted for Obama. Now some voted for him because he was black and some because he made sense and he was what the current times needed. For the most part most Minorities are a cross between Independent and Democrats. So to win in 2012, Sarah will have to grab their vote. I think for the most part, the white population is probably split with 50 percent being Republican, 40 being Democrats and 10 percent being independents. So for Palin to win this, she already has about 50 percent of white people in the bank, now she has some work to do on the rest and this is where her approach comes into play. She has at least 2 years to sell herself to those groups her and Mc Cain lost to last year. But no matter her approach grabbing the minority vote is still going to be a tough one. And if health reform passes and does exactly what Obama says it will do, which is keep insurance companies honest, put them in a situation where they can’t deny any American health insurance and help insure 30 to 40 million plus Americans who don’t currently have health insurance. Then simply put she and any other Republican will have a steep hill to climb.

Taking Responsibility

When did taking responsibility for our mistakes go out the window? We live in such a culture this days, were pointing the finger seems easier than looking the mirror and saying, “I made a mistake”.  Well all want to blame the Banks, Insurance companies, Wall Street and the Government for the mess we are in, but this was a mess perpetrated by us. We let Wall Street investor take our moneys for a ride, we let banks put us in bad loans and we kept saying I do to the expensive life style we knew we couldn’t afford. We gambled with our money, our family and our lives and we lost. We lost our will to say, “NO” and we became the yes man or woman. We lost our will to be smart, and chose to be the teenage versions of ourselves who longs for everything when they need nothing. Thinking of the way we did things, reminds me of the guy who drives a SUV that’s fully furnished, with spinning rims and speakers in the high thousand, but doesn’t pay his child support. Or women who feel every sales ad in the paper is a reason to shop and then find themselves with closet full of hundreds of clothes she has never worn or never will, while other important things falls lacking behind.

People making $40,000 a year, decided to get $300,000 homes, on non fixed rate, and wondered why their mortgage would fluctuate from $800 a month to over a thousand dollars. Putting them in a situation where all other bills didn’t matter but their rent. Some of this people have kids, other necessity like electric bills, cable, car payment etc.  And because of these gigantic mistakes, we brought down the value of not just our homes, but our neighbors also. We brought down the value of our streets, cities, county and the state. And the trickle from this affected other sectors of Business in America.

Now we are all upset that the government is throwing money at these banks. We might not see it, but as much as the government was trying to bail out banks, they bailed us out also. The money given to the banks weren’t so the CEO’s can take longer vacations. The money was to clean the mess we began. The money helped the banks, which made lending money to individuals and small business owners easy again. The money had provisions that allowed people whose mortgage was on the rocks, get help with re-financing with lower rates. Provisions with tax credits and the list goes on. Now looking in the mirror was something I had to do also because I fell in this trap also.

I remember back in June 2001, when I was 19. I had a live in girlfriend. So I wanted to purchase a car, because for almost a year, we had been sharing a car and we didn’t have the same schedules, which made it hard to share the car. So we went car shopping. We found a car we liked and then the next day, we went back to speak to the dealers to try to purchase the car. With my job at the time, around 150 to 190 a month would have been the perfect amount to pay for a used car. And the car itself was about $6000 dollars. What I got next was something I was not used to. The mind games Car sales men play on you. I got there around 9am that morning. And with every trip to the bathroom, or the water fountain, the hours kept passing me by. The sales man came back and said I didn’t have enough on my credit to buy this car. At the time all I had on my credit was a $300 credit card that I was paying on time. So every time he left the room, I taught to myself, I won’t be able to get this car or any other car, if all other dealerships have a problem with me not having credit. But the guy said to me, I will get you in a car today, and that put a smile on my face. By 2 PM that afternoon, I was just sitting there and ready to leave, but I was still hoping my magic man would keep his word. Around 2:30 PM he did, he came with a brand new truck, a 4-seater Ford ranger. 2 adult seats, and 2 small seats in the back. The funny thing when I look back now is, I was not qualified for a $6000 loan but I did qualify for a loan for $22,000 for the new truck. The sales man said I got some student loan thing that they were currently doing, even though I wasn’t a student. He said for me to get the student loan, I could not get the car I wanted, I could only get a brand new car and the truck was the only one they had in stock. I don’t know if it was my youth, me been a trusting person, or me just wanting a car so bad, but I said yes. At the time I was making 8.50 per hour and I should have known better, but I chose not to.  Fact is I could have easily said no and gone else where, but I was thinking I could have the same problem with another dealer. And this is how, we Americans get ourselves in trouble. I dislike the fact that over-sight was taken off the private sector, but just like my scenario, I could have worked away, I could have said , ”NO”. But I didn’t because I wanted that car, just like most Americans wanted that Home. Wanting and Needing are the root to the evil that destroys us. We shouldn’t want what we can afford and we don’t need everything.

What we need to do is be smart, and not expect other people to look out for us. It is not the Bank’s job to look out for us, that’s our job, and the Government shouldn’t have a back door to our personal finances. It sickens me to think we caused the recession and then we have the guts to whine when the government tries to clean up our mistake. Banks are getting bailouts, Banks are getting bailouts. Well they wouldn’t need to if we didn’t feel the need to splurge, and spend like there is no tomorrow. How about we are all look in the mirror and understand, the only person really getting in our way is, simply put, us.