Nancy Pelosi with Chuck Schumer in 2018.Credit…Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
“When Nancy Pelosi first took up the speaker’s gavel in January 2007, it was amid soaring talk of making history and breaking barriers. “For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling,” she proclaimed at her swearing-in. “Now the sky is the limit. Anything is possible.”
“Sixteen years, four presidents, two impeachments, one pandemic and a failed insurrection later, Ms. Pelosi will soon hand over that gavel for good and step down from House leadership amid a darker, more divided political landscape than she likely imagined in those first heady days. The George W. Bush
years weren’t a high point for bipartisan comity and public trust in government, but they were a far cry from the violence-obsessed, conspiracymongering nihilism of Trumpism.”
“But Ms. Pelosi has never been one to let the haters get her down, and some of her most important acts of leadership have come at some of the nation’s lowest moments.
History, being reductive, will remember Ms. Pelosi as the first woman to rise to the exalted post of speaker, just two steps away from the presidency. Those who have watched her work in the House for so many years will remember her as something arguably just as notable: a total badass.”
The article culminates with this paragraph:
“Ms. Pelosi is an original, and we are unlikely to see another leader of her ilk any time soon. She elbowed her way to the tippy top of the congressional boys’ club, then set about distinguishing herself as the most formidable, most effective House leader since the middle of the last century. Love her or hate her, you have to acknowledge the fundamental badassery.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/opinion/pelosi-speaker.html)
Nancy Pelosi wears it well. Given half a chance I believe she may have taken a Baseball bat to the Trumpster.
My Mother, who was a Republican, bless her heart, would still have admired and respected the hell out of Madam Speaker. Much will be written about Nancy in the years to come, and she will be studied in political classrooms all over the country. Every woman, Republican or Democrat, entering politics will know the story of Madam Speaker and her badass ways and methods.
Pelosi, first woman speaker, to depart Dem leadership in seismic shift
Nancy Pelosi, a legislative giant regarded as one of the most powerful speakers in modern U.S. history, announced Thursday she will forgo another run for Democratic leadership but retain her House seat.
By Sarah Ferris
11/17/2022 12:31 PM EST
Nancy Pelosi, one of the most powerful speakers in modern U.S. history, will cede the helm of House Democratic leadership after 20 years and take on an unfamiliar role: Rank-and-file member.
Donald Trump Vs Nancy Pelosi: The Most Epic Clashes of All Time
One of these two politicians will go down in history as one of the G.O.A.T. The other one will go down in history… Nancy has become famous for speaking truth to power and getting Trump’s goat. Is that not ironic, or what? Nancy, who was the Trumpster’s bete noire, caused the gas bag to assume the position and “nut-up” by striking a pose such as the following on many occasions.
Upon awakening this morning it was my intention to end this blog. I am not getting any younger, and the re-election of the corrupt Russian stooge and lackey for mad Vlad Putin, Arkady Dvorkovich, who won “by a landslide,” disgusted and bummed me out. The headline at Chess24 says it all: Dvorkovich re-elected FIDE President by landslide.
The Dovrk & Vishy Anand: Partners in crime
The first paragraph says it all: “Arkady Dvorkovich, Russian Deputy Prime Minister from 2012-2018, has been re-elected as President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) for another four years. He defeated Ukrainian Grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets by a landslide 157:16 vote at the FIDE General Assembly in Chennai, India, after the remaining candidates all withdrew.” (https://chess24.com/en/read/news/dvorkovich-re-elected-fide-president-by-157-16-landslide) Mother would have said, “It was a put-up job.” The fix is always in when FIDE is involved. Colin McGourty writes in the excellent article: “The elections for FIDE President are always murky, with the principle of one federation, one vote meaning that countries with few chess players have the same power as major chess countries with tens of thousands of rated players. Inevitably it’s often a question of what a candidate can directly promise the delegates of a country, while another level of influence is diplomatic. The Russian government is reported to have directly campaigned through its embassies in previous elections.” With Russia waging war against a neighbor, Ukraine, the last person the Chess world needs as it’s “face” is a nefarious, underhanded Russian apparatchik who is nothing but a lackey and toady for Mad Vlad, yet that is what we the Chess players of the world have leading the main international Chess body. It does not bode well for Chess.
The news of the death of an old friend, classmate, and roommate has not helped but only enforced the funk into which I had fallen.
Then this morning with my first cuppa coffee I fired-up the Dude, surfed over the the New York Times and saw an article, replete with myriad pictures, that was positively fascinating. It was then the realization struck that I had at least one more post in me, especially after knowing immediately what song would accompany the post. I drained that cuppa Joe while listening to more than a few different versions of a wonderful song by a singer with a fantastic voice and narrowed the choice down to two different versions. But first the article, which unfortunately cannot include all of the pictures:
His Next Move: A Ukrainian Boy Starts a New Life Through Chess
After fleeing the war in Ukraine with his mother, Maksym Kryshtafor, 8, is using his passion for chess to help him assimilate into the United Kingdom.
By Megan Specia Aug. 13, 2022
Photographs by Mary Turner
YORK, England — Pints in hand, a group of men sat hunched over chessboards under the sloping ceiling beams of the Eagle and Child pub in York, in northern England.
Among them sat Maksym Kryshtafor, an 8-year-old Ukrainian boy with freckles and an impish smile, who navigated his pieces across the board with intense focus.
The group had moved its weekly meeting to an earlier time to accommodate its young guest’s bedtime, and he was soon impressing these chess aficionados with decades more experience.
“He’s really good for his age; there’s no question about that,” said Paul Townsend, 62, an avid chess player and member of England’s chess federation. “And he clearly has a talent.”
Mr. Townsend and his family are hosting Maksym and his mother after the federation essentially played matchmaker and asked if they would be willing to sponsor the pair.
More than six million refugees have left Ukraine for Europe, according to the United Nations, each facing the challenges of a life ripped apart by war: a strange land, an unfamiliar language and tenuous ties to support systems like education and health care — if they have any ties all. Finding a pursuit that provides focus and stability can help exiles navigate the anxieties and upheaval of restarting life far from home.
For Maksym, it was chess.
Maksym staring down his opponent before winning a game of speed chess in the Delancey U.K. Schools Chess Challenge in June.
Just four days after arriving in Britain, Maksym drew the attention of the local news media when he won a tournament in County Durham, about 45 minutes north of York by train. He quickly became known on the local chess circuit.
“Chess is all his life, and now it’s all my life,” said Maksym’s mother, Iryna Kryshtafor. “It’s like air for him because all the time he is playing.”
Chess has helped Maksym deal with the complex emotions of leaving his home and adjusting to life in Britain, which has not always been easy. Without a good grasp of English, he was placed with younger students for some of his lessons in school, and it has been hard for him to connect with other children, his mother said. He misses his grandparents, who lived with them in the Ukrainian city of Odesa and who stayed behind. Ms. Kryshtafor is estranged from Maksym’s father, who has not been a part of the boy’s life.
When the war broke out in February, Ms. Kryshtafor, 45, had scrambled to throw her and Maksym’s most essential belongings into a rucksack as they fled for the border.
Countless mothers across Ukraine were focused on how to save their children while maintaining a sense of stability, and Ms. Kryshtafor was no different.
While she forgot to bring a proper winter coat for herself, she packed the things she knew were the most important to Maksym: a chess book, a laptop for him to practice his games on, and the white polo shirt and red fleece that he wears for every competition.
They went first to Romania, where they stayed for weeks. Then Ms. Kryshtafor reached out to the English Chess Federation to see if someone would host her and Maksym so he could continue playing and return to school.
She was eventually connected with Mr. Townsend and his wife, Helen, who offered them an annex in their spacious house near York, under a program that allowed British families to host Ukrainians fleeing the war for six months. So far, despite procedural difficulties, more than 65,000 people have headed to Britain from Ukraine under the program.
Maksym has been enrolled in school, where he is beginning to make friends and is enjoying math, Ms. Kryshtafor said, because even without a strong grasp of English, he can understand it.
Even with hospitable hosts like the Townsends and the security of life far from war, Ms. Kryshtafor said she had found it difficult to adjust to humbling circumstances. She had spent most of her life in Odesa, and despite having two college degrees and a career as a journalist, she is now working as a hotel cleaner.
Maksym before taking part in a chess tournament in June in York.
“It’s not so simple,” Ms. Kryshtafor said as she described the anxieties of living in someone else’s home and having to rely on them for her and her son’s needs.
“I feel comfortable here,” she said, “but all the time I am thinking about what will happen in six months.”
Under British policy, families agree to host Ukrainians for six months, and their visas last for up to three years. The Kryshtafors will need to find a place of their own unless the sponsors allow them to stay beyond the initial agreement.
To ease the anxiety, mother and son have thrown themselves into chess, a focus of much of Maksym’s young life.
He began playing at 4 and has showed early promise.
Both have expressed hope that he can become a grandmaster before turning 12, eager to unseat the world’s youngest person to reach the prestigious ranking.
Maksym began playing chess at age 4.
But Mr. Townsend and other chess aficionados say that goal is a long shot. Still, Maksym is clearly skilled, Mr. Townsend said.
“Does that mean he’s going to become a grandmaster ever, let alone at the age of 12? Not necessarily,” he said.
Still, Maksym is nothing if not determined. He wakes at 5 a.m. each day to practice online before school and until recently had regular online training sessions with a Ukrainian chess grandmaster through the Ukrainian Chess Federation.
So far, his lucky outfit and his hours of training have served him well as he wins competition after competition in England. In late July, he and his mother traveled to Greece for the European Youth Chess Championship, where he won in two categories — rapid and blitz — in his age group.
Like many former Soviet nations, Ukraine has a long tradition of strong chess grandmasters, Mr. Townsend explained, but often the expectation is of total dedication to the game from a young age.
Players watching a game of chess with Maksym.
“You would see it as a place where chess is taken a lot more seriously than it is here,” Mr. Townsend said. Parents put young children into rigorous training programs, and school is often second to chess.
“It’s such a massive, culturally different approach to chess playing,” Ms. Townsend said. As a diversion from chess, she has enjoyed showing Maksym how to cook, taking him on nature walks, and building with Lego pieces.
But much of Maksym’s time is still dedicated to chess, and Mr. Townsend has been keen to help him get involved in local tournaments.
On a recent Saturday morning, he took Maksym and Ms. Kryshtafor to a Quaker school in York for a competition involving 120 youths ages 7 to 18. Boards were lined up on tables in a gym, filled with row after row of children tapping clocks and moving pieces.
Some of the children were so small that when seated, their feet swung above the floor. Maksym’s sneakers barely touched it.
In June, 120 youths ages 7 to 18 competed at the tournament in York.
He sat, fidgeting slightly, while the organizers rattled off the rules in English. He did not understand much of what was being said, but he knows how to play. His first match was over in under a minute.
He ran into the hall where Ms. Kryshtafor was waiting and embraced her. After the next match, Maksym again went running out to his mother.
“Too easy,” he said with a smile. “I made a checkmate.”
Before the fifth match, Maksym pressed his forehead against his mother’s and she whispered some words of encouragement. His opponent, an older boy, arrived just before play began.
Maksym rested his chin on his hand and smiled until, suddenly, he realized he had made a mistake. He pulled at tufts of his hair, twisting them around his fingers. He eventually lost to the boy, and after they shook hands, he wiped tears from his eyes.
Maksym eventually placed second in the competition. By the end, he seemed more interested in chatting with a group of children who had organized a game of tag outside.
His long hair flew behind him as one of the children chased him.
“He’s just a child,” his mother said as she watched him frolic. “He works so hard with chess that sometimes you forget he’s just a child.”
This post is dedicated to arguably the best Speaker of the House in the history of the United States of America, Nancy Pelosi, who did it all “For the Children”.
I believe the children are our future Teach them well and let them lead the way Show them all the beauty they possess inside Give them a sense of pride to make it easier Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be Everybody’s searching for a hero People need someone to look up to I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs A lonely place to be And so I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago Never to walk in anyone’s shadows If I fail, if I succeed At least I’ll live as I believe No matter what they take from me They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all Is happening to me I found the greatest love of all Inside of me The greatest love of all Is easy to achieve Learning to love yourself It is the greatest love of all
I believe the children are our future Teach them well and let them lead the way Show them all the beauty they possess inside Give them a sense of pride to make it easier Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows If I fail, if I succeed At least I’ll live as I believe No matter what they take from me They can’t take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all Is happening to me I found the greatest love of all Inside of me The greatest love of all Is easy to achieve Learning to love yourself It is the greatest love of all
And if, by chance, that special place That you’ve been dreaming of Leads you to a lonely place Find your strength in love
In addition, this post is dedicated to my friend and former roommate, Gary Allen Whitlock:
Gary Whitlock
Obituary for Gary Allen Whitlock
Mr. Gary Allen Whitlock, age 73, of Palmetto, passed away Wednesday, August 10, 2022. He was born January 3, 1949 to Harold and Dorothy Whitlock. Gary served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War. He was employed with the United States Postal Service in Palmetto, GA for 34 years. He is survived by his wife, Nara Denise Whitlock; his mother, Dorothy Allen Whitlock; his children, Micah Whitlock and his wife, Laura, Sarah Deck and her husband, Thomas, Anna MacIsaac and her husband, Barry, Mark Whitlock and his wife, Alyssa; his 10 grandchildren, Hannah, Jacob, Jordan, Hailey, Jadon, Isaiah, Raelynn, Garrett, Greyson, Owen; and his brother, Mark Whitlock. A funeral service will be held Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 2 o’clock in the Chapel of Parrott Funeral Home with Pastor Brian Hosmer officiating. Interment will follow at The Whitlock Family Cemetery in Peachtree City. The family will receive friends Saturday evening from 5:00 until 8:00 p.m. at Parrott Funeral Home & Crematory, 770-964-4800. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to Daystar Israel at www.daystar .com. (https://www.parrottfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Gary-Allen-Whitlock/#!/Obituary)
Gary was,, obviously, responsible for bringing many children into this world. During the pandemic an old friend and I discussed getting some of the old gang together when it ended. Susan called one day saying, “Hey Eggs, guess who just stopped by for a visit?!”
To do something trivial and irresponsible in the midst of an emergency; legend has it that while a fire destroyed the city of Rome, the emperor Nero played his violin, thus revealing his total lack of concern for his people and his empire. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fiddle-while-rome-burns
Pelosi on Trump’s coronavirus response: ‘As the President fiddles, people are dying’
By Chandelis Duster, CNN
Updated 11:06 AM ET, Sun March 29, 2020
Washington (CNN)House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying “his denial at the beginning was deadly” and that as he “fiddles, people are dying.”
“We should be taking every precaution. What the President, his denial at the beginning was deadly,” Pelosi said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
As US cases surge, Pelosi questioned when Trump was informed about the coronavirus and his knowledge on its potential impact. “I don’t know what the scientists said to him, when did this President know about this, and what did he know? What did he know and when did he know it? That’s for an after-action review. But as the President fiddles, people are dying. And we just have to take every precaution.”
Asked by Tapper if she believes Trump’s downplaying of the crisis has cost American lives, Pelosi responded, “Yes, I am. I’m saying that.”
“Because when he made the other day when he was signing the bill, he said just think 20 days ago everything was great. No, everything wasn’t great,” she said. “We had nearly 500 cases and 17 deaths already. And in that 20 days because we weren’t prepared, we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases.”
When asked about Trump suggesting he wants to relax social distancing guidelines in parts of the country, Pelosi said, “His delaying of getting equipment to where it — it continues his delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed, is deadly. And now I think the best thing would be to do is to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up, because we just don’t know.”
The bill allocates at least $1.25 billion to the states and $500 million to the District of Columbia. Some have criticized the bill, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The Democratic governor was critical of the funding amount, saying the bill did not “address the revenue shortfall.”
Asked about Cuomo’s comment, Pelosi said, “We have to do more.” She called the bill “a down payment.”
“I’ve talked to the chairman of the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank, Mr. Powell, Chairman (Jerome) Powell, and asked him to do much more because they have the authority to do so, even more authority, since we passed this bill,” she told Tapper. “But we have to pass another bill that goes to meeting the need more substantially than we have.”
Barbra Streisand Talks New Album ‘Walls’ and Its Trump-Dissing Single ‘Don’t Lie to Me’
9/27/2018 by Joe Lynch
Barbra Streisand, an inarguable Greatest of All Time talent when it comes to the stage, screen and recording studio, returns to music on Nov. 2 with the release of a new album, Walls,
her first LP consisting primarily of original songs since 2005.
If the word “walls” makes you think of a particular sitting president’s signature campaign promise, well, take a listen to its lead single, the just-dropped “Don’t Lie to Me.” An impassioned, dramatic ballad with pointed barbs at a particular man of power who likes to “change the facts to justify” his actions, it’s hard not to read it as a dig at Trump.
“I had to write this song,” Streisand tells Billboard. “These times gave me energy.” But while Walls is inspired by the turbulent times we find ourselves in, it’s also universal, speaking to a sense of hope and resilience in the face of falsehoods and the “smoke and mirrors” described in this new single. “There’s a light coming in and hope for the future,” she says. “We have to grow as a nation.”
Just ahead of the song’s release, the icon (and we don’t use that word lightly – she’s the only recording artist to nab a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in six consecutive decades) hopped on the phone with Billboard to discuss why she returned to songwriting, how one of the songs on Walls is inspired by a scene from Funny Girl, what she thinks about Lady Gaga’s A Star Is Born — and why she turned down a chance to direct a remake some years ago.
Don’t Lie to Me
Barbra Streisand
Produced by Jonas Myrin & John Shanks
Album Walls
[Verse 1]
Why can’t you just tell me the truth?
Hard to believe the things you say
Why can’t you feel the tears I cry today?
Cried today, cried today
How do you win if we all lose?
You change the facts to justify
Your lips move but your words get in the way
In the way, in the way
[Pre-Chorus]
Kings and queens, crooks and thieves
You don’t see the forest for the trees
Hand and heart, on our knees
You can’t see what we all see
[Chorus]
How do you sleep when the world keeps turning?
All that we built has come undone
How do you sleep when the world is burning?
Everyone answers to someone
[Post-Chorus]
Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, you lie to me
Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, you lie to me
[Verse 2]
You can build towers of bronze and gold
You can paint castles in the sky
You can use smoke and mirrors, old clichés
Not today, not today
[Pre-Chorus]
Kings and queens, crooks and thieves
You don’t see the forest for the trees
Hand on heart, down on knees
You can’t see what everyone sees
[Chorus]
How do you sleep when the world keeps turning?
All that we built has come undone
How do you sleep when the world is burning?
Everyone answers to someone
[Post-Chorus]
Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, you lie to me
Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, you lie to me
[Bridge]
Can’t you see I’m crying?
Can’t you see we’re crying?
Where’s the new horizon?
Where’s the new horizon?
[Hook]
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep?
(How do you sleep when the world keeps turning?
All that we built has come undone)
Enough is enough
How do you sleep?
(How do you sleep when the world is burning?
Everyone answers to someone)
[Post-Chorus]
Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, you lie to me
Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, you lie to me
[Outro]
Can’t you see I’m crying?
Can’t you see we’re crying? (Can’t you see we’re crying?)
Everyone answers to someone
The president tweeted the name of the presumed whistle-blower in the Ukraine scandal—demonstrating that he is unrepentant and determined to break the law again.
December 28, 2019
David Frum
Staff writer at The Atlantic
U.S. President Donald Trump listens to a question from the news media as he sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 26, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis – RC19D2A20E00
Amid a two-day binge of post-Christmas rage-tweeting, President Donald Trump retweeted the name of the CIA employee widely presumed to be the whistle-blower in the Ukraine scandal. On Thursday night, December 26, Trump retweeted his campaign account, which had tweeted a link to a Washington Examiner article that printed the name in the headline. Then, in the early hours of Friday morning, December 27, Trump retweeted a supporter who named the presumed whistle-blower in the text of the tweet.
This is a step the president has been building toward for some time. The name of the presumed whistle-blower has been circulating among Trump supporters for months. Trump surrogates—including the president’s eldest son—have posted the name on social media and discussed it on television. Yet actually crossing the line to post the name on the president’s own account? Until this week, Trump hesitated. That red line has now been crossed.
Lawyers debate whether the naming of the federal whistle-blower is in itself illegal. Federal law forbids inspectors general to disclose the names of whistle-blowers, but the law isn’t explicit about disclosure by anybody else in government.
What the law does forbid is retaliation against a whistle-blower. And a coordinated campaign of vilification by the president’s allies—and the president himself—surely amounts to “retaliation” in any reasonable understanding of the term.
While the presumed whistle-blower reportedly remains employed by the government, he is also reportedly subject to regular death threats, including at least implicit threat by Trump himself. Trump was recorded in September telling U.S. diplomats in New York: “Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call—heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw—they’re almost a spy. I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
Trump’s tweeting in the past two days was so frenzied and the sources quoted were so bizarre—including at least four accounts devoted to the Pizzagate-adjacent conspiracy theory QAnon, as well as one that describes former President Barack Obama as “Satan’s Muslim scum”—as to renew doubts about the president’s mental stability. But Trump’s long reticence about outright naming the presumed whistle-blower suggests that he remained sufficiently tethered to reality to hear and heed a lawyer’s advice. He disregarded that advice in full awareness that he was disregarding it. The usual excuse for Trump’s online abusiveness—he’s counterpunching—amounts in this case not to a defense but to an indictment: Counterpunching literally means retaliating, and retaliation is what is forbidden by federal law.
The presumed whistle-blower’s personal remedy for the president’s misconduct is a private lawsuit for monetary damages against the federal government. It’s hard to see how such a lawsuit would do anybody any good. The presumed whistle-blower still draws a salary, and may not have suffered any material costs at all. The presumed whistle-blower’s ultimate compensation for this ordeal should be a future place of honor in the service of the country.
In the meantime, though, the country is left once again with the problem of a president who refuses to obey the law. Trump is organizing from the White House a conspiracy to revenge himself on the person who first alerted the country that Trump was extorting Ukraine to help his reelection: more lawbreaking to punish the revelation of past lawbreaking. Impeaching a president whose party holds a majority in the Senate obviously presents many grave practical difficulties. But Trump’s post-Christmas mania confirms House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s prediction that Trump would impeach himself.
Donald Trump will not be bound by any rule, even after he has been caught. He is unrepentant and determined to break the rules again—in part by punishing those who try to enforce them. He is a president with the mind of a gangster, and as long as he is in office, he will head a gangster White House.
Bushwick Bill, performing at Los Angeles State Historic Park on August 5, 2018. The rapper died June 9, 2019 following an earlier diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
Yes
We’re here to talk about those who
Are considered to be an elected official
Who said it was official that when they was elected
That everything that they dealt with had me in mind
As a human being, as a man
But not as a slave or three fifths human
I have the right to bear arms
What makes you think I respect you?
[ VERSE 1: 3D ]
Hello Mr. President, residents of the White House, excuse me
I’d like to know, have you ever enjoyed an old-time gangster movie?
With the white man ringin shots on blocks
With their clean shave and pin strip-suits
Bootleggin-whiskey-rapin-black-women-and-havin-a-fat-stack-of-loot
Undercover David Duke, isn’t it true
The gangster movement started long before my time
Long before the hair rag, gangster sag
Finger signs and love for nines?
Damn, in your minds and in your hearts
Is the hate really that deep, what’s truly goin on?
Knockin me for the words I write
For writin movie scripts by whites like Mr. Al Capone
[ Bushwick Bill ]
Yeah
America
A land that made Christopher Columbus
A historian for bringing madmen, white slaves, and rapists
Kennedy, his dad was a bootlegger for Al Capone
Became President
Isn’t it evident
That those who sit in the residence
Are not president?
[ VERSE 2: 3D ]
Now why you want to try to knock me
Cause I’m black, got a gat
Twist my hat and all, listen to Mr. Scarface
Think about the way the government wants to hold us back
As a matter of fact
I believe the whole system is a huge crime scene
And everyday they’re doin the dirty work
And layin it on us niggas, if you know what I mean
So don’t corrupt your own minds foolin yourself
Tryin to lay it on the black man
I’m a young gee tryin to leave poverty
With a gat in my black hand
So white heathen, taken straight out of
The crate of a mouth of a babe
Yeah, a honkey can’t stop what a honkey started
And the ghetto’s what you honkeys made
[ Bushwick Bill ]
That’s right, sittin up there in the White House
With your homosexual mentalities and female persuasions
Yeah, I’m talkin to all the J. Edgar Hoovers
That are still left in there
All the big brothers that are watching
I hope you’re listenin
Cause the bad shit you put on criminals has made the citizens take control
[ VERSE 3: 3D ]
Now Sergeant hit ya, get with ya
Let’s get back to the issue, continue dissin
My way of livin, so a little nigga like me
Gots to go and dish ya this mission
Hopin that the message that I’m sendin
Gets through to you and your people
Devil, look at your own dirty past
Before you come to me with your blue-eyed evil
If I kill 30 innocent, would you write
A movie about me and spare
My life, or would you lock me up with triple life
And strap me down in the electric chair?
See, it’s not about the sign I throw up
Or where I roam, or what a nigga wear
See cracker, it’s all about respect for your hood
Your clique, and all of those whose pain with you share
[ Bushwick Bill ]
That’s right, pain
The pain that I feel
Is the pain from shame
The shame that you’ve caused me
For over 400 years of protection
The pain that I have within me
The rage that is flaming
Makes me want to say the things that I say
Do the things that I do
And let you know
That when you look at me
Or look down at me
Or look across from your side of the world to my side
That what you have failed to realize
Is that you’ve put me in projects
I realize it was an experiment
So when you put me in jail
I realize I just made it through the millions
I’m just another rat that made my cheese
And you couldn’t stand it
But what can all the big cats do
When all the rats want to get fat
But try to cut down on the cheese
What you don’t realize is that you’re jerkin yourself
Killin your own existence
You’re all walking dead men, and don’t know it
With book sense and street sense
If you had street intelligence
You would really know
That you’re one footstep between life and death
That the mouth is a open grave
And you’ve offered me the right to elect you to a bullet
Which is a straight shot to the top, right?
And what goes up must come down
That’s why it’s goin down right now
You can smell the smoke
See the flames
And see the bodies that are left on the ground
Because the flag
Red, white and blue
And the stars from all the years you’ve whupped me and mines
I still see
President Donald Trump is hardly acting like a very stable genius.
Instead, his unleashed fury, fact-bending rants and persecution complex are conjuring an image of someone seeing his presidency slipping through his hands. While current political conditions seem unlikely to lead to his ouster from office, Trump appears increasingly powerless to save himself from the historical scar of impeachment.
He has crushed just about every norm since descending his golden escalator to launch his 2016 presidential campaign. Now he’s reinventing how presidents deal with an existential scandal. And it seems to be leading him deeper into the darkness.
Part of Trump’s frustration may stem from the unusual nature of his current plight. Since taking office, Trump has kept Washington hopping, with his adversaries never knowing what wild gyration will rock the capital next. But in the week since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally initiated impeachment hearings, the President has seemed out of sorts. It is the Democrats who are doing all the running, and Trump can’t catch up. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/donald-trump-impeachment-inquiry/index.html
Slippin’ into Darkness
War
Produced by Chris Huston & Jerry Goldstein
Album: All Day Music
Slippin’ into Darkness
I was slippin’ into darkness
When they took my friend away
I was slippin’ into darkness
When they took, when they took my friend away
You know he loves to drink good whiskey
While Laughing at the moon
Slippin’ into darkness
Take my mind beyond the dreams
I was slippin’ into darkness
Take my mind beyond the dreams
Where I talk to my brother
Who never said their name
Slippin’ into darkness
All my trouble so I choose
I was slippin’ into darkness
All my trouble so I choose
I got a wife and a baby
Now my love hath gained its fame
Slippin’ into darkness
When I heard my mother say
I was slippin’ into darkness
When I heard my mother say
You’ve been slippin’ into darkness
Armchair Warrior 