This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.
Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.
But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.
Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Rich Fly upperclass Tijuana Girls: I got the formula.
No one swoops more fly TJ girls than I do now. Numero Uno.
Call me “Arellano Felix”.
“Creatively superior, yo, I never lose
So Parker Lewis and I thought you dudes knew it.”
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
A flawless 7.03-carat blue diamond will be among the jewels up for sale at Sotheby’s upcoming auction in Geneva.
The diamond, an internally flawless, fancy-vivid-blue, cushion-cut stone, was cut from a 26.58-carat piece of rough discovered in 2008 at Petra Diamonds’ historic Cullinan Diamond Mine in South Africa.
The Cullinan mine has produced some of the world’s largest diamonds, including the 3,106-carat “Cullinan,” the largest rough gem ever unearthed.
The diamond is estimated to fetch between $5.8 million-$8.5 million, according to a press release from Sotheby’s, and, as always, the buyer will have the honor of naming the stone.
The sale, called “Magnificent Jewels,” is scheduled for May 12 at the Beau-Rivage Hotel in Geneva.
Commenting on the blue diamond, David Bennett, chairman of Sotheby’s International Jewellery Department for Europe and the Middle East, said “Blue diamonds are among the rarest of all nature’s treasures and it is very exciting to have such a fine example as the centerpiece of our forthcoming Geneva Magnificent Jewels sale. This stone certainly ranks among the most important blue diamonds that I have had the privilege of offering for sale in my career at Sotheby’s, and what makes it particularly special for us is that we’ve been able to follow its production from the initial rough state through the various stages of its cutting and polishing.”
In the last three years, Sotheby’s has seen three blue diamonds garner more than $1 million per carat at auction, including a pear-shaped vivid-blue diamond set in a ring that brought $4.9 million at the Geneva auction in May 2008, setting a new world record price-per-carat for any gemstone at auction.
Polished diamond prices have dropped 15 percent in the past six months, according to an index from PolishedPrices.com.
Sotheby’s sold a vivid blue emerald diamond in October 2007 for a then-record $1.32 million per carat. The 6.04-carat stone fetched $7.9 million in Hong Kong, the company said. It has since sold two further pear-shaped blue diamonds for $4.9 million and $4.7 million.
Petra sold a 39.19-carat rough blue diamond from Cullinan for $8.8 million in October. The world’s most expensive blue diamond is the 17th century Blue Wittelsbach Diamond, which fetched $24.3 million at Christie’s in December, according to the International Colored Gemstone Association’s web site.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Sen. John McCain said Wednesday he’s sure that President Barack Obama “will be more than eager” to pardon the late black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who was sent to prison nearly a century ago because of his romantic ties with a white woman.
In this corner – Jack Johnson
Appearing with three of Johnson’s family members and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., McCain unveiled a resolution urging a presidential pardon for Johnson, who was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. The law has since been heavily amended, but has not been repealed.
McCain, R-Ariz., said he planned to speak to Obama about it, but added, “I think the last person I have to convince probably is President Obama.”
Miles Davis- A Tribute to Jack Johnson
“We need to erase this act of racism which sent an American citizen to prison on a trumped-up charge,” McCain said, adding, “I have great confidence this president will be more than eager to sign this legislation and pardon Jack Johnson.”
The White House declined to comment Wednesday. Obama was in London on Wednesday attending a summit on the global economic crisis.
McCain and King — both of whom have done their share of boxing — are advocating the pardon along with filmmaker Ken Burns, whose 2005 documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,” explored the case against Johnson and the sentencing judge’s admitted desire to “send a message” to black men about relationships with white women.
Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion on Dec. 26, 1908, 100 years before Obama became the first black president.
“It certainly would be a moment in history,” King said, “to have the first African-American president granting a pardon to the first African-American heavyweight champion.”
The resolution announced Wednesday seeks a pardon that acknowledges Johnson’s career and reputation were wronged “by a racially motivated conviction prompted by his success in the boxing ring and his relationship with white women.” Similar resolutions offered in 2004 and last year failed to pass both chambers of Congress.
Burns helped form the Committee to Pardon Jack Johnson, which filed a petition with the Justice Department in 2004 that was never acted on. He called Johnson “the greatest boxer of all time,” and said when Johnson proved unbeatable in the ring, “the white power establishment decided to beat him in the courts.”
He called a pardon for Johnson “just a question of justice, which is not only blind, but color-blind,” adding, “I think it absolutely does not have anything to do with the symbolism of an African-American president pardoning an African-American unjustly accused.”
Johnson won the 1908 world heavyweight title after police in Australia stopped his 14-round match against the severely battered Canadian world champion, Tommy Burns. That led to a search for a “Great White Hope” who could beat Johnson. Two years later, Jim Jeffries, the American world titleholder Johnson had tried for years to fight, came out of retirement but lost in a match called “The Battle of the Century,” resulting in deadly riots.
Authorities first targeted Johnson’s relationship with Lucille Cameron, who later became his wife, but she refused to cooperate. They then found another white witness, Belle Schreiber, to testify against him. Johnson fled the country after his conviction, but agreed years later to return and serve a 10-month jail sentence. He tried to renew his boxing career after leaving prison, but failed to regain his title. He died in a car crash in 1946 at age 68.
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
