This article has two purposes. First is to discuss the big lie the Republicans, Teabaggers and mainstream media are telling you about the Post Office. The Post Office is not in bad financial straits. The Post Office is being FORCED by a deliberate Republican policy into bad financial straits and really has overpaid the government billions of dollars according to two independent audits.

The second purpose is to emphasize just how important it is for you to be involved in your local Democratic Party and/or other local political organizations. The chance to meet your Congressional Rep, even challenge your Congressional Rep face to face, and the chance to meet members of unions and other organizations is invaluable. You are unlikely to be able to do this otherwise.

At the October 2011 meeting of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, my local reform and progressive Democratic club, there was not enough time for all the information and presentations that people wanted to give. A scheduled discussion by a local Green/Democratic activist of the situation in Liberia (something I am particularly interested in and he has direct, first hand knowledge of) had to be postponed. I cam slightly late so missed one presentation. But we had our Congresswoman present and answer questions (including some challenging ones), we had a representative of a Postal Union give a detailed presentation about what right wing extremists are doing to try and force privatization of the Postal Service (a really, really bad idea), we discussed Occupy Wall Street and plans the club has to give tangible support to Occupy Wall Street, and we discussed hydrofracking and attempts the community has to try and prevent the destruction of our drinking water for corporate profit and more global warming.  read more »

Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan scolded us customers (for me, I am now mostly a FORMER customer), saying he was "incensed" at criticism of his bank.

Well Mr. CEO Moynihan, sir...did you notice that your stock has dropped from over $50 a share to about $6 a share? To me that marks YOU as a failure. Meanwhile, TD Bank, which did NO predatory lending and took NO taxpayer funded bailout money, has stayed about $70 a share through the entire time Bank of America tanked.

Seriously, Mr. CEO Moynihan, sir...do you have ANY right to be scolding ANYONE given the disgusting performance of your company?

Come back to me when you no longer need my tax money to just stay afloat. In a TRUE free market you and your lousy company would already be bankrupt, with companies like TD Bank buying up the remains of your assets at bargain prices. That is what TRUE capitalism would look like. Mr. CEO Moynihan, sir, you would be out of a job in a real free market. So stop whining and stop scolding and start showing some humility given the failure you represent.

Mr. CEO Moynihan, or should I say Mr. CEO $50 drops to $6 a share, has no business telling me I shouldn't complain about his lousy company.  read more »

Back in the summer of 2003, freshman NYC council member James Davis was shot to death in the NYC council chambers at City Hall; mere moments before a stated meeting of the council was called to order. The most poignant memory of that terrible event was probably that of a distraught Geoffrey Davis (James’s younger brother) continuously sobbing:”they assassinated my brother; they assassinated my brother”. Television-news coverage showed the palpable grief. The pain was real. James and his younger brother Geoffrey were real close. James was Geoffrey’s first hero. Geoffrey nicknamed him: “Rocky”.

James Davis was the charismatic ex-cop, ex-jock, ex-preacher, ex-charmer, from Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He was the founder of the James E. Davis Stop the Violence Foundation. Every August for almost two decades now, the foundation has held an annual march to inspire and motivate kids to “love themselves and stop the violence”. I know very well. I have marched with them quite a few times over the years.  read more »

As I said before: truth by its very nature is controversial. And since my first column with this title, I have had to defend a president of whom I have been critical at times; and with whom I disagree on quite a wide range of policy-approaches and position-takes in both foreign-policy and domestic spheres. Look; I am a man who loves to give Jack his jacket and Jim his gym shoes: thus I must give President Barack Obama his props (as they say in the hood).

On paper, none of the current Republican challengers should defeat BO next year November; but paper is very thin, so I hold my reservations. Plus the republican base is smelling blood -and that’s not a good sign for perennially lethargic democrats. Republicans are motivated like hell; at this point in time democrats are not.  read more »