Trump offers $5 Million

... For Obama's college records!

Don't say this isn't for publicity because it is.  It's shit like this that kept Trump from running for president.  It's easier to sit on the sideline and lob a hand full of mud whenever it suits you knowing that your target can't fight every single person that is opposing them.  This isn't about finding out "answers that Americans want to know".  This is about pressing your own agenda.  Why else wait until after all debating is over and elections are 2 weeks out?

Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what happens when the rich opt to be political.  With this one outburst, issues which were long laid to rest and forgotten are back at the forefront.  Apparently it's more important to nit pick over a piece of paper saying I WAS BORN IN THE U-S-OF-A after years of no one questioning, than it is to focus on real issues.

Even if the college records come back clean and prove that Obama enrolled as a citizen (which people will continue to doubt), all it takes is one course in his transcripts to be a public relations disaster.  Guess what.  I took a class about Nazi Germany.  A lot of people took that class.  I can safely say that hundreds of people took that class with the same teacher while it was offered at my university.  One of my TA's was a self described "Sovietologist".  STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES BECAUSE I MUST BE A SOCIALIST!  One class.  That's all i took.  I got a "B" in the class.  Does that make me a "pinko" or a "skinhead"?

This blood lust for a witch hunt must stop in American politics.  We're tearing ourselves apart and no one sees it.  The polarization between both sides will tear the country apart.  I/we live in a world where politically it's now either or but never both.  Either you're for the war in Iraq or you hate all troops.  You can't be for the troops but against their current mission.

Record amounts of money is being spent on campaigns by anonymous donors.  Donors who we have no idea what their ultimate agenda is.  How much of this money is foreign?  How much money are hostile countries dumping into both sides of the campaign to escalate the tensions and throw more gas on what will be a glorious bonfire?

What happened to the buzz phrase "create jobs"?  Think about how much that $5 million that trump is offering would help a couple of businesses RETAIN JOBS.  How much would that help the Mexican government in their fight against the cartels that have turned the Southern border into a quasi war zone?  How much would that help rebels in Syria because lord knows the US needs another ally in the region after Israel gets vaporized?

What makes me the most sick is that I read the articles surrounding this stunt and i actually wasted my time thinking and writing about it which in turn feeds the fire.  If we all ignore people like Trump and the Kardashians, much like a bad fart, they'll eventually go away into the realm of mediocrity.

One in 100 US adults behind bars

According to recent news article the United States:

More than one in 100 adults are now behind bars in the United States, home to the world's largest penal population, with a startling one in nine young black men incarcerated, a study has shown.

The prison and jail population rose by 25,000 to 2.3 million last year, out of a US adult population of 230 million, bringing the incarceration rate to one in 99.1 for the first time in US history, the Pew Center on the States said.

By comparison, China, with a population of one billion people, was second in the world with 1.5 million inmates, followed by Russia with 890,000 people in the slammer, the study said.

America also has the dubious distinction of leading the planet in the rate of incarceration, which is higher than nations like South Africa and Iran, the study said.

(continued...)

This is obviously a subject i'm very passionate about. A friend of mine and i talked about this briefly and he questioned what the results would be if you exclude all "white" people. Sad but true.

What bothers me the most about this is how do we as Americans allow this to happen? Are we so blinded by fear that we believe "criminal" is an ax wielding maniac who is going to loot and pillage because they've been convicted of a crime? Have we bought into the whole "lock them up and throw away the key" mentality that we would rather live in a police state than actually show empathy towards a fellow human?

This being an election year, one of the reoccurring issues is how a candidate deals with crime. Candidates will bend over backwards in local elections to demonstrate that they are "tough" on crime. Heaven forbid if they ever showed any leniency in the past. Ironically, these are the same people that we as citizens will be begging for leniency from if/when we find ourselves caught within the judicial system.

What's most disturbing about this news is that it reflects our society today. As wide spread as the results of this study have been, I have seen no attempts to put it in context. How exactly has the US gotten to this point? It's not as though we collectively locked up that large of a portion of our population over night. The reality is that these results took years to attain. An undeniably large factor in these total incarceration numbers is the Federal Sentencing Guidelines which have recently been recently overturned. The fact that one in 100 US adults is currently behind bars has been over 20 years in the making.

My biggest fear is that people will be too shortsighted to truly grasp the bigger picture. The knee jerk reaction that we collectively have is "we should do something about this." The problem is, in a couple days we will watch the news and hear about how a young black male shot someone while robbing a liquor store and only received 18 months in jail despite their history of being violent. The belief that this "menace" should be "locked up in order to make our streets safe" becomes everyones new attitude. Never once is it mentioned that this alleged menace has a history of substance abuse, physical/sexual/psychological abuse, and that this individuals father is currently incarcerated for 10 years for possession with intent to distribute (drug dealing) courtesy of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

After reading the article in question, I ask that you ask yourself why these numbers are so steep. As frightening as they are, now I ask that you consider the number of people that are on extended supervision (parole, probation, work release, or pending trial/conviction/sentencing).

Do the math.

Crack-vs.-powder disparity is questioned

After reading the following article that i found today, I couldn't help but cheer. for the past couple years i've been saying essentially the same thing. Unfortunately, it seems as though no one truly listens to what i say. What could i possibly know? I know that there is excellent information like this publication that helps back up my opinions and beliefs.

It's unfortunate that it has taken this many years for information like this to finally be pushed to the forefront of news. The more i learned about disparities like these over the years, the more frustrated i have become both politically and socially with my surroundings. What's truly sad is that a vast majority of people both ignore the facts which have been stated and believe that this is "bad for society because crack is evil". People in general turn a blind eye to the facts and resort to the 30 second sound bites on the 10pm news.

Right now i find it difficult to avoid saying the obvious "i told you so" that i'm implying here. It's important that people learn from the injustices that have been committed over the past 20 years and strive to move forward. We can't change the past but we have the ability to write our future. The laws have not been changed as of yet but this is a huge step in the right direction.

Recently the Federal Sentencing Guidelines have been overturned. Now the media is finally questioning the disparity in some of the drug laws. Change doesn't happen over night but it feels mighty good when you look around and see progress has been accomplished.