The mayor of a California city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.”

Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at Monday’s City Council meeting.

via Mayor to quit over Obama watermelon e-mail – Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com.

And good riddance!

Not that I don’t think that race or other defining characteristic isn’t important,  but rather that Dr. King’s dream will have finally been acheived, and the content of the character will trump the color of the skin.  And yes, I do think to a certain degree that happened here with President Obama.  But the second African-American President shouldn’t be a big deal, y’know?

What else?

Hmm… President Obama is already off to a very good start with the executive orders he has already signed to close the prison at Guantanamo and elsewhere, to prohibit the use of torture, to re-fund reproductive planning that includes a comprehensive group of tools including abstinence and abortion, ethics rules, presidential records.

But the economic recovery plan has way too many tax cuts, and not enough in infrastructure building.  If President Obama did tell Republicans “I Won,” at that meeting on Thursday, then what the hell is he doing with all these ridiculous tax cuts?  As we know, tax cuts don’t work, especially during a serious recession.  People are not guaranteed to spend the tax money, and people in the lowest tax brackets don’t pay taxes anyway, so a tax cut to people who don’t already pay taxes is kind of useless.  Not only that, but we are burdening future generations with debt to pay back for these tax cuts.

Infrastructure, on the other hand, is investment in our future.  Roads, bridges, public transit, schools, colleges, and other public works are real things that benefit real people.  If we have to take on more debt, then let us take on more debt that actually helps improve the economy and the efficiency and safety of our current infrastructure.  We don’t need tax cuts right now – we need jobs and building stuff.

Take Action

Contact your representative and senators and tell them you want more infrastructure investment and fewer tax cuts in this recovery stimulus package.

Mehserle, 27, was taken into custody in Douglas County, Nevada, said Deputy Steve Velez of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was also confirmed by David Chai, chief of staff to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

Mehserle was arrested in connection with an investigation by the Oakland Police Department into the shooting of Oscar Grant, 22. An Alameda County judge signed an arrest warrant, and Mehserle surrendered without incident, authorities said.

Douglas County sheriff’s officials refused to disclose what crime Mehserle was accused of committing in the arrest warrant. Deputy Velez said Sheriff Ron P. Pierini would make a statement on Wednesday.

This trial needs to be brought to a speedy beginning.  There’s not really much to debate – the entire world has seen Mehserle shoot Grant.   But is it murder or something else?  That’s for a jury to decide.

The victim, Oscar Grant, was face down, handcuffed on the cold, hard concrete platform floor, with an officer kneeling on his back or neck. The shooting officer draws his gun out of his holster, stands up, and shoots at essentially point blank range. But then look at the expression on his face: he looks down at his hand holding the gun, and the look on his face is one of shock, dismay, mortification. The officers don’t immediately call for medical attention, though. They flip the guy over onto his back, and at that point, the train upon which the videographer was filming takes off.

So, I don’t know what was in Johannes Mehserle, the now-former officer’s mind when he did this. But there are some good questions here, like why on earth does someone carry their gun and their taser right next to each other where the possibility of mistake is so high? Why did he draw his gun to begin with, even if he thought it was his taser, as he claims? The man in custody was handcuffed and face-down, and the other officer was kneeling upon him. He didn’t need to be electrocuted nor shot.

I don’t know if he meant to commit murder, but he did shoot an unarmed, defenseless man. Mehserle needs to go to jail for a good long time.

Current Mood:  angry

As we have learned, the McCain campaign helped spread the race-baiting hoax that Ms. Ashley Todd was attacked, robbed, and mutiliated by a large black man. They contacted reporters and are the ones who spread the “B” is for Barack detail. Despite their denials and claims that it was the police department who put out that detail, the two reporters who initially reported on it both confirmed that it was McCain representatives who told them that lie.

So, we have a race-baiter in John McCain, spreading the old idiocy of the big scary black man plucking the flower of white female youth. When will we grow past this silliness and see and appreciate both the similarities and the differences between people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds?

As Barack Obama says, “There is no red America, there is no blue America; there’s the United States of America.”

Article one of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Lest we forget what we’re fighting for:

McCain has nothing positive to say as to why people should support him, has no new ideas or proposals, and has stirred up a froth of hatred and xenophobia in this country.

But even more than that, as CNN’s Rick Sanchez points out, the right-wing spin machine was all too willing to take this hoax, and blow it into a national news item. This is what the Republican party has become today: xenophobic, racist, lying, hypocritical, corrupt, shallow, and venal.

Instead, contrast McCain’s campaign with Barack Obama’s campaign: he gave a very compassionate, measured, adult response, in which he hoped for the “victim’s” safety and health, and for justice for the perpetrator. An excellent response, and as it turns out that Ashley Todd made the whole thing up, it only serves to show how desperate the McCain campaign has become, how desperate the right-wing has become, that they’ll spin out of control like mad tops and grasp at any straw that will come along to try to sow the seeds of fear and doubt in the minds of the American people.

But we don’t want that sort of politicking anymore. We want discussion of the actual issues facing our nation, and to hear candidates’ ideas to address those issues. Barack Obama has been very successful so far in that regard.

We mustn’t flag. We mustn’t falter. We are so close to November 4th. Keep up the good work: call, write, email, talk, volunteer, donate, and whatever else you do, VOTE BARACK OBAMA!