DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: “WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S BLUEPRINT?” (VIDEO)

Post Sources: Beacon Press, YouTube

DR MARTIN LUTHER “PROMISED LAND” KING JR WAS ASSASSINATED APRIL 4, 1968

~ DR MARTIN LUTHER “PROMISED LAND” KING JR WAS ASSASSINATED APRIL 4, 1968:


"A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true."
MLK; March 8, 1965
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"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything, I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
MLK; April 3, 1968


~ KING DIED YOUNG SO THAT CIVIL RIGHTS FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS COULD LIVE LONG.

~ KING DID NOT DIE A PEACEFUL DEATH BUT HE DIED FOR PEACE.


Sources: AP, CBS News, Yahoo News, Youtube


****** The view from the mountaintop: Martin Luther King's turbulent, tragic last year


On April 4, 1967, a Tuesday, Martin Luther King Jr. took the pulpit at New York’s Riverside Church, the great Gothic cathedral conceived by John D. Rockefeller Jr., to deliver a speech entitled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.”

It announced a decisive shift in King’s message and ministry, from desegregation to a broader engagement with pacifism and social and economic justice. And it marked the beginning of the final year of his life. Exactly one year later, the concerns he spoke to that day would lead him to support a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., where he was shot and killed.

“I come to this great magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice,” he said at the beginning of his talk, before a crowd of more than 3,000 that filled the immense church. “A time comes when silence is betrayal.

That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.” He went on to describe how Great Society antipoverty programs, “the real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white,” had been left “broken and eviscerated” by the costs and the social divisions imposed by the war. “We [are] taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. … We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.” He invoked his ministry, “in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them.” And in his summation, he quoted from one of his favorite hymns, written more than 120 years before by the abolitionist James Russell Lowell:

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decideIn the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side
Opposition to the war was not a new position for King, although it may have been news to some of his followers. Two years before, he had expressed his view that military action in Vietnam was “accomplishing nothing,” but that came in a question-and-answer session after a speech, and it attracted little attention. As the war escalated through 1965, the board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference authorized him to pursue his own peace initiatives, drawing a warning from an assistant secretary of labor, George Weaver, described by the New York Times as “one of the highest-ranking Negroes in the Johnson administration,” that he risked provoking a “miscalculation” by the North Vietnamese or their patrons in the Soviet Union or China.

So he understood the risk he was taking. He would be breaking decisively with Lyndon Johnson, the president who had done more than any other since Lincoln to advance civil rights. He was being challenged on the left by a new generation of Black Power advocates and harassed by J. Edgar Hoover, whose covert efforts to discredit and destroy King would get new ammunition from his association with the people derisively called “peaceniks.” Peace activists were often labeled “Commies” in those years, and it was King’s long association with the left-wing activist Stanley Levison, whom Hoover suspected of being a Soviet agent, that brought King under FBI surveillance in the first place. Ironically, as the historian Taylor Branch points out, Levison was actually opposed to King’s involvement in antiwar causes and tried to talk him out of giving his Vietnam speech. (“I lost,” Levison told associates, in a wiretapped phone call, “and we’ll just have to live with the consequences.”)

But King was being pushed in the other direction by another influential aide, James Bevel, a fiery preacher from Mississippi, who saw the Vietnam War as an extension of America’s oppression of nonwhites. (Ironically, after King’s death, Bevel would become a supporter of Ronald Reagan and later drift to the fringes of politics as the running mate of perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.) And King was pushed, more than anything else, by the logic of his own commitment to nonviolence. How, he wondered, could he demand that his own people brave police clubs and dogs without striking back, and not denounce the bombs the United States was dropping on children on the other side of the world? “It has been my consistent belief and position that non-violence is the only true solution to the social problems of the world and of this country,” King wrote a supporter just before the Riverside speech. “The principle of love which has motivated so many to strike out against the evils of racism here in America must motivate us to protest the brutal destruction of the Vietnamese People.”

In the spring of 1967, King, notwithstanding his 1964 Nobel Prize, was not quite the towering figure we look back on today. The great victories he had helped win — the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — were receding into the (recent) past. The SCLC was in disarray and debt. King’s effort to tackle racial segregation in the North was foundering on the discovery that housing was a much more complicated and nuanced issue than whites-only lunch counters.

King’s antiwar activism, while popular among the antiwar left, wasn’t winning many converts even among his allies in the civil rights movement, some of whom supported the war on principle, while others worried it would dilute his message about race. Within days of King’s speech the leading mainline civil rights group, the NAACP, disassociated itself from his stance, with a declaration that “we are not a peace organization nor a foreign policy association. We are a civil rights organization.” An editorial in the New York Times on April 7 (“Dr. King’s Error”) chastised King, in measured Times-speak, for making “too facile a connection between the speeding up of the war in Vietnam and the slowing down of the war against poverty.”

King’s life was already hectic and was about to get more so. He spent his last year crisscrossing the country in a whirl of speeches, sermons, meetings, rallies and marches. David Halberstam, who profiled him in the summer of 1967 for Harper’s magazine, noted that “most of King’s life is spent going to airports, and it is the only time to talk to him.” The period has been chronicled in a number of places, notably including the final volume of Branch’s magisterial trilogy on King’s life, “At Canaan’s Edge,” and a new HBO documentary, “King in the Wilderness.” Local newspapers reported on his visits whenever he touched down, in articles that make for arresting reading 50 years later, with their casual references to “Reds” and “Negroes,” which is the word King himself used. (It would be another year before the Amsterdam News, Harlem’s leading publication, totally banished the term in favor of “blacks.”)

A partial list of the places King visited during that year includes, besides New York and his home in Atlanta: Boston; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Chicago; Cleveland; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Miami; Grinnell, Iowa; Clarksdale, Marks and nearby towns in Mississippi; Geneva, Switzerland (for a world peace conference); Newcastle upon Tyne, England (to receive an honorary degree); Acapulco (for a two-day vacation); and, of course, Memphis. Along the way he rebuffed appeals to run for president as a peace candidate, served a five-day sentence in the Birmingham, Ala., jail, was accused by Hoover, in a secret report to Johnson, of plotting to blow up the Chicago Loop, and was bequeathed the entire estate — amounting to less than $10,000 — of the New Yorker writer Dorothy Parker, who admired him although they had never met.

A few days after the Riverside speech, King flew to California for a series of speeches. He held a press conference in part to deal with the repercussions of the address, at which he clarified, apparently for the benefit of donors to the SCLC, that he was not seeking to merge the civil rights and peace movements — meaning their contributions wouldn’t go to support his antiwar activism. By April 15 he was back in New York for a large and unruly march and rally for peace at the United Nations, alongside the antiwar activists Harry Belafonte and Benjamin Spock. “Many Draft Cards Burned — Eggs Tossed at Parade” was part of the headline in the next day’s Times. Citing some of the banners, signs and chants, the story introduced readers of the Times to a new slogan: “No Vietnamese ever called me nigger.”

Over the next few months King made repeated trips to Cleveland, one of four cities he had designated as a focus of his campaign to improve housing and job opportunities for blacks. He denounced the city’s crackdown in response to the previous summer’s riots, telling reporters, “a get-tough policy should mean getting tough against poverty, inferior education and rat-infested slums.” Meeting with local ministers and civil rights leaders, he involved himself in the details of local organizing: rent strikes, voter registration drives and “Operation Breadbasket,” targeted boycotts meant to force businesses to hire more black workers. “We’re not begging for freedom any more,” he told a press conference in May. Among a handful of reports on King’s local activitiespublished by the Plain Dealer that summer and fall was a front-page picture of him relaxing on the lawn of a local activist, dressed, as he almost invariably was in photographs from those years, in a dark suit, white shirt and necktie. He was tossing a football to a couple of youngsters, including his sons, Martin III and Dexter, who were along for the trip.

On June 12, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of eight black African-American ministers, including King and his brother, for contempt of court, stemming from a demonstration in Birmingham four years earlier. Bull Connor, Birmingham’s commissioner of public safety, had denied the group a permit to march, but they did anyway, invoking the doctrine of civil disobedience to illegitimate authority. In a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice Earl Warren among the dissenters, the Court overruled that defense and ordered the men to serve their sentences and pay a $50 fine. Even if forbidding the march was unconstitutional, the decision held, the proper remedy was to appeal the denial to the courts. A few months later, one of the justices in the majority, Tom Clark, was replaced by Thurgood Marshall. Marshall, a civil rights hero in his own right, became the first African-American on the court, and, it’s safe to say, would have tipped the balance to the other side.

King was in and out of Cleveland and Chicago at least a half-dozen times that summer. In August he returned to Atlanta for the SCLC convention, where he announced plans to “dislocate” Northern cities with a campaign of “mass civil disobedience.” In a long speech titled “Where Do We Go From Here?” he enumerated achievements in Chicago and Cleveland, including the hiring of more black contractors by major department stores and taking out advertisements in Negro newspapers. The speech was well received, and the audience broke into applause and affirmation as King moved into his peroration with one of his signature aphorisms: “Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But reading it today one is struck by the realization that just a few years earlier King had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to overturn a century of injustice and oppression and had stood in the Oval Office as Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. A gap had opened between King’s soaring rhetoric and the grindingly slow process of bringing concrete improvements to the lives of millions of people in big-city ghettoes and the ramshackle towns of the Old South. The arc of the moral universe would have to be very long indeed if its course were to be measured by the hiring of more “Negro insect and rodent exterminators, as well as janitorial services” by chain stores in Chicago’s South Side.

At the end of October, King and three others, including his brother, the Rev. A.D. King, surrendered in Birmingham to serve their sentences. “As we leave for a Birmingham jail today,” King said, “we call out to America: Take heed. Do not allow the Bill of Rights to become a prisoner of war.” He did not follow up on plans to write a sequel to his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail” of 1963, although he did compose an essay, “A Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged,” that was later published in the New York Times. The men were released after four days; King’s close aide Rev. Ralph Abernathy joked that since the lawyers had failed to keep the pastors out of jail, he was going back on his promise to keep them out of Hell. On being released, King announced plans to visit the Soviet Union. This was a trip he never made.

Now things began speeding up. On Dec. 4 King announced plans for a “poor peoples’ campaign for jobs or income,” which would take the form of a march on Washington the following spring. “In a news conference here,” the Times reported from Atlanta, “the winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace acknowledged that the ugly mood of many Negroes in the nation’s slums made the campaign ‘risky,’ but he asserted that ‘not to act represents moral irresponsibility.’” The reporter observed that “the Negro leader’s mood seemed deeply pessimistic.” A whirlwind of fundraising and planning for the march ensued, interrupted by more speeches and rallies. In January, he visited Joan Baez in jail in Oakland, Calif., where she was serving a sentence for staging a sit-in to protest the draft. On the men’s wing, he visited another peace activist, Ira Sandperl. Sandperl was struck, Branch writes, by the “contrast between the well-tailored figure in starched cuffs and the face of weary depression. King asked a favor. ‘When I’m in jail in Washington,’ he said, ‘come visit me there.’”

On Feb. 4, King was back in Atlanta in the pulpit of his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, where he preached what has become known as the “Drum Major” sermon, musing on the all-too-human desire for recognition. The text is from the 10th chapter of Mark, in which the apostles James and John request the honor of sitting alongside Jesus. This impulse is the root of the social evil of racism, King said, “a need some people have … to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first,” and also of the personal vices of jealousy, arrogance and pride. That thought in turn led him to consider his own place in history and how he would want to be remembered and eulogized. “I don’t want a long funeral,” he said. “Tell them not to talk too long. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize — that isn’t important.” He wanted to be remembered, he said, as someone who served others, who tried to feed the hungry and serve humanity and who “tried to be right on the war question.” “Yes, Jesus,” he concluded, “I want to be on your right or your left side, not for any selfish reason. … I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.”

It was also in February that King appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show, where Belafonte, a close friend, was filling in as host. King mentioned he had flown up from Washington on a plane that had been delayed by “mechanical difficulties,” and he was glad to land safely. “I don’t want you to think that as a Baptist preacher, I don’t have confidence in God in the air,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve had more experience with him on the ground.”

“Do you fear for your life?” Belafonte asked.

“Not really,” King replied. “Ultimately it isn’t important how long you live — it’s how well you live.” He was 39.

On March 3 he returned to Ebenezer to preach on “Unfulfilled Dreams,” about world-historical figures who never achieved their greatest goals — like Gandhi, who lived just long enough to see his dream of a united India shattered by religious war and partition, or King David, who died before he could build a temple to the Lord. Each of us is building our own temple, King told the worshippers. We are all traveling to a destination, and what matters isn’t whether we reach our destination, but that we are on the right road.

He was hurtling toward his own destiny, and perhaps he sensed it. Certainly those around him did. His aides worried he was pushing himself too hard, in danger of burning out, or of losing control of the civil rights movement as more militant figures rose to prominence, mocking his lifelong commitment to nonviolence. He spoke in Detroit in mid-March, then flew to Los Angeles for speeches and meetings where, Branch writes, he let himself be talked into committing to visit “Indian reservations and migrant labor camps from California to Appalachia and Massachusetts” in the run-up to the Poor People’s March, whose start was barely more than a month away. Then he took a call from James Lawson, a preacher and organizer in Memphis, urging him to speak at a rally in support of a strike by the overwhelmingly black sanitation workers’ union. So he flew into Memphis by way of New Orleans on March 18, arriving to a packed auditorium at the Mason Temple to deliver a rousing address.

“We are tired of being at the bottom! We are tired of our men being emasculated so that our wives and daughters have to go out and work in the white lady’s kitchen,” he thundered. As the cheers filled the packed hall, he promised that he would be back.

From Memphis, King descended into the Delta, visiting towns in some of the poorest counties in the United States, speaking in what the Times called “a shabby firetrap of a building whose interior walls are covered with funeral-parlor calendars” showing a suffering — white-skinned — Jesus on the cross. “I am very deeply touched,” King told mothers who couldn’t afford shoes for their children. “God does not want you to live like you are living.”

Then he got back on an airplane to meet with supporters in New York, visiting a Harlem tenement where a local activist, Mrs. Bennie Fowler, cooked him lunch and served it beneath a clothesline strung across her dining room. He apologized for canceling some appearances, explaining “I’ve been getting two hours’ sleep a night for the last 10 days.”

Then he returned to Memphis for a march that started late and quickly turned ugly, with looting, cops injured and shooting back and hundreds arrested. King back in his hotel room was overcome with remorse (according to FBI transcripts of his wiretapped phone conversations), blaming himself for being unable to rein in the anger he had always hoped to keep from spilling over into violence.

“Maybe we just have to admit that the day of violence is here,” he said in despair to his aides. “And maybe we have to give up and let violence take its course.” Then he flew home to Atlanta.

Newspapers around the country denounced King as an agitator and troublemaker, following, in some cases, scripts that had been surreptitiously provided by Hoover’s agents. King flew to Washington to preach a Sunday service at the National Cathedral, describing the poverty and misery he had seen the week before in Mississippi. That day, Sunday, March 31, ended with Johnson’s speech announcing he would not run for another term as president in November.

And then King returned to Memphis for a third time. His aide Xernona Clayton had picked him up at his home, where, she recounts in “King in the Wilderness,” his two sons had uncharacteristically tried to keep him from leaving. “He said, what in the world happened to these kids. They must be trying to tell me they’re missing me more, and when I come back I’ve got to change my habits.”

His flight out of Atlanta was delayed because of bomb threats, and he arrived at the Mason Temple amid a Biblical-magnitude thunderstorm. He spoke about the strike and Operation Breadbasket, and he repeated his warnings about violence: “We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles; we don’t need any Molotov cocktails.” He recalled the time he had been stabbed at a book signing in New York, an attempted assassination that came very close to succeeding. Doctors told him just a sneeze could have ruptured his aorta, and then “I wouldn’t have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had,” and “I wouldn’t have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there.”

“And then I got into Memphis,” King continued. “And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out, or what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now; we’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land.

“I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight; I’m not worried about anything; I’m not fearing any man.”

And he ended with a line from the great Civil War anthem, the Battle Hymn of the Republic:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

That was the night of April 3, 1968.

TRUMP'S 2018 STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH - 9pm EST (LIVE VIDEO); MILESTONES FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

TRUMP'S 2018 STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH - 9pm EST:

EXPECTED TOPICS -

MILESTONES FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

HOW TO UNIFY OUR NATION

MORE TRAINING FOR U.S. TROOPS

UPDATES ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

GOP TAX PLAN

MORE FUNDING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

WALL STREET & THE STOCK MARKET

AFFORDABLE EDUCATION & HEALTH CARE

SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA & RUSSIA

SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE

ETC.,


Sources: NY Times, Youtube


******* State of the Union: Trump to Declare a ‘New American Moment’


• President Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, and The New York Times will be streaming it live on our website and on our app. Follow our coverage for the latest updates and analysis.

• The White House has released excerpts from the speech.

• The president will arrive at the Capitol amid remarkable tumult: Anger that he has declined to impose sanctions on Russia and worry over a Republican memo on the origins of the Russia investigation.

White House releases excerpts — “the New American Moment.”
The White House released excerpts from the State of the Union address, a tradition that gives the president a few hours’ head start to highlight what he wants the audience to focus on.

Here are a few, as prepared for delivery:

“We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day’s work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.”

“Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses — many of them thousands of dollars per worker.”

“This is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.”

“For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.”

“In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.”

“America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nation’s wealth.”

“America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year — isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?”

“I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.”

“Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.”

“As we rebuild America’s strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.”

“Last year I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.”

Sonny Perdue, agriculture secretary, designated survivor.
Yeah, there’s the first lady’s clothes or which big wig will fall asleep this year. But the State of the Union proceedings also have this bit of intrigue: Which cabinet official will earn the distinction of designated survivor?

The mystery this time was solved two hours before Mr. Trump was due to give his address on Tuesday, when the White House said that the honor would go to Mr. Perdue, the former governor of Georgia and the president’s agriculture secretary.

Glamorous in title but, thankfully, not so far in practice, the designated survivor does not attend the president’s address, and is poised to take over the commander-in-chief’s responsibilities in the event that catastrophe strikes the Capitol and wipes out most of the government. If tradition holds, Mr. Perdue will be watching from a distant and secure location while Mr. Trump speaks.

The short tenure of the designated survivor has an oversize presence in the public imagination: There is a TV series by the same title, about a low-profile cabinet member who suddenly assumes the presidency after a terror attack.

How might he measure up in the Oval Office? Mr. Perdue, a conservative Republican, shares something in common with Mr. Trump: As governor of Georgia, he faced ethical criticisms for not appearing to fully separate himself from his business interests. He once ran a grain and fertilizer business.

— Katie Rogers

“You’ve gotta have heart.”
Hours before his first State of the Union address, President Trump told a group of news anchors at a lunch in the White House that his first year in office has taught him that the biggest difference between excelling in business and performing his current job is that governing takes compassion.

“I’ve really learned a lot,” Mr. Trump told the reporters, according to a partial transcript of an off-the-record lunch released publicly by the White House. “In doing what I’m doing now, a lot of it is heart, a lot of it is compassion, a lot of it is far beyond money — such as immigration.”

Mr. Trump, who is expected to use Tuesday night’s speech to call for a bipartisan compromise that pairs legal status for a group of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children with funding for a border wall, tougher enforcement and new restrictions on legal immigration, recently said he was hoping to sign a “bill of love.”

That tone is sharply at odds with the president’s approach on immigration thus far, which has included a travel ban against visitors from six countries, slashing refugee resettlement and revoking temporary protected status for people from El Salvador and Haiti. He has been more publicly conflicted about his decision last fall to rescind DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that has given legal status to certain people brought illegally to the United States as children.

“I’m telling you, the immigration is so easy to solve if it was purely a business matter, but it’s not,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think that’s something that I’ve learned maybe more than anything else: You have to — you govern with all of the instincts of a businessperson, but you have to add much more heart and soul into your decisions than you would ever have even thought of before.”

Dreamers head to the Capitol — despite the risk.
Democratic lawmakers have decided to put a face on the difficult negotiations happening in Congress over the fate of young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. They are bringing scores of such “Dreamers” to the Capitol for Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Representative Nancy Pelosi’s guest, Melody Klingenfuss, is just one of them. Born in Guatemala, she was brought to Los Angeles when she was 9, earned a degree in communications and political science from California State University, Los Angeles, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, then won protection under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2015.

“Tonight, when President Trump looks into the gallery during his State of the Union, he will see the dignity, courage and patriotism of dozens of Dreamers,” said Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.

But there is a flip side. Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, has called the cops.

So much for the warm welcome.

Mr. Gosar’s fellow Arizona Republican, Senator Jeff Flake, didn’t take kindly to his colleague’s citizen’s arrest.

Are we facing a “Constitutional crisis”?
The Trump administration’s announcement on Monday that it would not impose sanctions on countries that buy Russian military equipment sparked an angry response in Congress, where the Senate and House overwhelmingly approved the sanctions to punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 election.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri who faces a difficult re-election campaign this year, set the tone with a blast on Twitter.

That concern is bipartisan, at least in some quarters of the Republican Party. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, was flummoxed by the administration’s decision:

“That bill passed with only two dissenting votes in the Senate. It was not partisan in the least,” she said on CNN. “The one thing we know for sure already is the Russians did attempt to meddle in our elections, and not only should there be a price to pay in terms of sanctions, but also we need to put safeguards in place right now for the elections for this year, because we know that the Russians have not given up on their disinformation campaign and their attempt to sow discord in this country and also to undermine faith in democratic institutions.”

Testifying before a Senate panel on Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department had followed instructions under the sanctions law and drawn up a list of Russian targets for sanctions. An imposition of sanctions could still follow.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and one of the authors of the sanctions legislation, declined to criticize the administration’s actions. He did say, “I look forward” to the implementation of the sanctions.

Speaker Ryan weighs in on Russia memo.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin spent part of the morning before Mr. Trump’s speech tamping down expectations about a secretive Republican memo that some House members have claimed contains evidence that could undercut the Russia investigation.

In a closed-door meeting of House Republicans this morning, Mr. Ryan “implored” his fellow lawmakers not to overstate the facts of the memo, which the House Intelligence Committee voted to release Monday night. And he urged them not to tie the contentious document — which Democrats call dangerously misleading — to the work of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to a person in the room.

Mr. Ryan reiterated some of those points during a public news conference an hour later, saying that he had faith in the F.B.I. and Justice Department’s broadly and that he thought Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, the man overseeing the Russia investigation, was “doing a fine job.” Still, Mr. Ryan defended the Republicans’ overall approach, saying that they were following proper processes and that only transparency would lead to accountability at the agencies.

That was not enough to quiet the most ardent proponents of the notion that federal law enforcement agents have conspired to bring down the Trump White House. Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, called on the president to release the memo during the State of the Union.

DONALD J. TRUMP'S INAUGURATION SPEECH - CONGRATS (TRANSCRIPT)

DONALD JOHN TRUMP'S INAUGURATION SPEECH - CONGRATS (TRANSCRIPT):

MELANIA IS BEAUTIFUL.

GOD BLESS AMERICA; IT'S TIME TO COME TOGETHER.

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES MILITARY.


Sources: ABC News, CNN, Independent.co.uk, YouTube


**** "Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, fellow Americans and people of the world- thank you.


We the citizens of America have now joined a great national effort to rebuild our county and restore  its promise for all our people. 


Together we will determine the course of America for many, many years to come.
Together we will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

Every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

And we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent, thank you.

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another- but transferring it from Washington DC and giving it back to you the people.

For too long a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

Washington flourished but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed.

The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country.

Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. While they have celebrated there has been little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you. It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America today.

This is your day.
This is your celebration.


And this- the United States of America- is your county.

What truly matters is not what party controls our government but that this government is controlled by the people.

Today, January 20 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. 

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement-  the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the centre of this movement is a crucial conviction- that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves.

These are just and reasonable demands.

Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.

An education system flushed with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.

And the crime and the gangs and the drugs which deprive people of so much unrealised potential.

We are one nation, and their pain is our pain, their dreams are our dreams, we share one nation, one home and one glorious destiny.

Today I take an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidised the armies of other countries, while allowing the sad depletion of our own military.

We've defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own.
And spent trillion and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

We have made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. 

One by one, shutters have closed on our factories without even a thought about the millions and millions of those who have been left behind.

But that is the past and now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, un every foreign capital, in every hall of power- from this day on a new vision will govern our land- from this day onwards it is only going to be America first- America first!

Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.

I will fight for you with every bone in my body and I will never ever let you down.

America will start winning again.

America will start winning like never before.


We will bring back our jobs, we will bring back our borders, we will bring back our wealth, we will bring back our dreams.

We will bring new roads and high roads and bridges and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation.

We will get our people off welfare and back to work- rebuilding our country with American hands and American labour.

We will follow two simple rules- buy American and hire American.

We see good will with the nations of the world but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their nations first.

We will shine for everyone to follow.

We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones, and untie the world against radical Islamic terrorism which we will eradicate from the face of the earth.

At the bed rock of our politics will be an allegiance to the United States.

And we will discover new allegiance to each other.

There is no room for prejudice.

The bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity.

When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.


There is no fear, we are protected and will always be protected we will be protected by the great men and women of our military and most importantly we will be protected by God.

Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger. As Amercians, we know we live as a nation only when it is striving.

We will no longer accept politicians who are always complaining but never doing anything about it.

The time for empty talk is over, now arrives the hour of action.

Do not allow anyone to tell you it cannot be done.

No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail, our country will thrive and prosper again. 

We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space, to free the earth from the miseries of disease, to harvest the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.

A new national pride will stir ourselves, lift our sights and heal our divisions.


It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots.

We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms and we all salute the same great American flag and whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look at the same night sky, and dream the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath by the same almighty creator.


So to all Americans in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean- hear these words – you will never be ignored again.
Your voice, your hopes and dreams will define your American destiny.

Your courage, goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

Together we will make America strong again, we will make America wealthy again, we will make America safe again and yes- together we will make America great again.


Thank you.

God bless you.

And God bless America."

SUPER TUESDAY RESULTS: TRUMP & HILLARY SCORE HUGE WINS

MARCH 2016 SUPER TUESDAY RESULTS: 

TRUMP & HILLARY SCORE HUGE WINS.

**** RESULTS ARE STILL COMING IN.

Sources: AP, CNN, PBS, Youtube

*** 2016 March Presidential primaries

Last updated Mar 1, 2016 at 11:35 PM ET

~ Delegates won

1,237 needed for nomination · 2,108 available

Trump
Cruz
Rubio
Kasich
Carson

221
69
41
19
7

~ Dropped out: 

Bush, Christie, Fiorina, Gilmore, Graham, Huckabee, Jindal, Pataki, Paul, Perry, Santorum, Walker

Mar 1:

Alabama · 50 delegates
79% reporting · Trump won and has 20 delegates
Alaska · 28 delegates

Last poll closes at 12:00 AM ET

Arkansas · 40 delegates
56% reporting · Trump won

Georgia · 76 delegates
91% reporting · Trump won and has 30 delegates, Cruz has 1

Massachusetts · 42 delegates
87% reporting · Trump won and has 18 delegates, Kasich has 5, Rubio has 5

Minnesota · 38 delegates
53% reporting · Rubio won

Oklahoma · 43 delegates
99% reporting · Cruz won and has 12 delegates, Trump has 10, Rubio has 6

Tennessee · 58 delegates
95% reporting · Trump won and has 26 delegates

Texas · 155 delegates
52% reporting · Cruz won and has 32 delegates, Trump has 14

Vermont · 16 delegates
82% reporting · Trump has 5 delegates, Kasich has 5

Mar 5
Kansas · 40 delegates

Kentucky · 46 delegates

Louisiana · 46 delegates

Maine · 23 delegates

Mar 8
Hawaii · 19 delegates
Idaho · 32 delegates
Michigan · 59 delegates
Mississippi · 40 delegates

Mar 12
Washington, D.C. · 19 delegates

Mar 15
Florida · 99 delegates
Illinois · 69 delegates
Missouri · 52 delegates
North Carolina · 72 delegates
Ohio · 66 delegates

Mar 22
Arizona · 58 delegates
Utah · 40 delegates

DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: "All I Want To Say To America Is Be True To What You Said On Paper"

DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR (JAN 15, 1929 - APRIL 4, 1968):

"I'VE BEEN TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP"

"All I want to say to America is be true to what you said on paper!"

"Somewhere I read that all Men are created EQUAL".

Circa April 3, 1968

Source: YouTube

NIKKI HALEY'S SOTU RESPONSE PROVES SHE WOULD MAKE A GREAT VP - REAL SUBSTANCE (VIDEO)

NIKKI HALEY'S SOTU RESPONSE PROVES SHE WOULD MAKE A GREAT VP:

HER RESPONSE HAD REAL SUBSTANCE, HIT ALL POINTS.

~ What Nikki Haley Said In The Republican Response To The State Of The Union

With the end of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sought in her Republican Party response to turn the page on his presidency and look towards the future -– one she said would be brighter under a Republican president.

“Soon, the Obama presidency will end, and America will have the chance to turn in a new direction. That direction is what I want to talk about tonight,” she said, speaking from the capital city of Columbia.

Haley said she understood that voters are frustrated with government, but added that Republicans must take some responsibility for that frustration as well as Democrats –- and channel it into meaningful action.

With the end of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sought in her Republican Party response to turn the page on his presidency and look towards the future -– one she said would be brighter under a Republican president.

“Soon, the Obama presidency will end, and America will have the chance to turn in a new direction. That direction is what I want to talk about tonight,” she said, speaking from the capital city of Columbia.

Haley said she understood that voters are frustrated with government, but added that Republicans must take some responsibility for that frustration as well as Democrats –- and channel it into meaningful action.

Sources: ABC News, NBC News, PBS, Youtube

AMNESTY: OBAMA vs BOEHNER; OBAMA WINS AGAIN; PUTS GOP IN A CHOKEHOLD FOR 2016 (OBAMA IS A GENIUS)

Even if I don't agree with all of Pres OBAMA'S decisions, the man still remains a Political Genius!

The GOP is Afraid to IMPEACH Pres OBAMA regardless of what he does because ISIS and AL QAEDA might attack the United States and Murder thousands of U.S. Troops.

Thus the GOP is darned if they Do and darned if they Don't!

OBAMA Wins Again!

Attention GOP: If you can't beat OBAMA, why not join him??

I'm just saying.





Article Sources: CNN; Daily Mail; NY Times; Wall Street Journal

****ARTICLE: "Republicans' Furious At Emperor Obama: John Boehner Warns President The House Will Stop Him; Accuses Him Of Damaging The Presidency"


**House Speaker goes on the offensive after President announced Executive Order allowing estimated five million Illegal Immigrants to stay on American Soil.

**Obama has 'turned a deaf ear to the people he was elected to serve', claims Republican House leader.

**Two Republican attorneys general promise to sue in first sign that executive order faces a guaranteed challenge in court.

House Speaker John Boehner promised on Friday that Congress would do something to stop President Barack Obama from forcing through his changes to the immigration system, though his caucus hasn't decided exactly what that will be yet.

'We will not stand idle as the President undermines the rule of law in our country,' Boehner said on Friday during a press conference, in which he accused Obama of 'damaging the presidency' and 'turning a deaf ear to the people he was elected to serve.'

'The President has taken actions that he himself has said are those of a king or an emperor, not an American president,' the GOP leader argued.

At the same time two Republican attorneys general pledged to sue the President for violating the Constitution and 'bestowing a legacy of lawlessness' on the country.

Republicans politicians are seething this week over the president's long-planned announcement that his administration will grants work permits to approximately 5 million migrants residing in the country illegally.

The president on Thursday night finally confirmed what news reports had been saying for days: parents of American citizen children and illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. before the age of 16 would be able to remain in the U.S. indefinitely as long as they meet certain conditions.

First, they must have arrived in America before January 1, 2010. They must also pay their back taxes and a fine and undergo national security and background checks.

Then, Obama told them, 'you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily, without fear of deportation.'

"You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law", he noted.

Although the president plans to sign an executive order today during a Las Vegas event making the directive official, and immigration officials will be 'immediately' instructed to stop removing qualifying migrants from the country, the mandate will not take effect until next year.

Immigrants applying for a reprieve through the president's already established Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will be able to file formal paperwork with the government in 90 days.

Those with citizen children must wait six months to obtain an application for delayed deportation.

Republicans hope to foil the Obama administrations plans before that provision of the order is allowed to take effect, however. They have been strategizing ways to block executive action on immigration for weeks, with conservatives aggressively pushing their colleagues to back a plan to defund the Department of Homeland Security if Obama doesn't rethink executive action.

In that situation, core agencies within DHS would continue to function, including Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration Customs and Enforcement, as their activities are considered 'essential' to maintaining order.

Non-essential operations such as the allotment of green cards and work permits would cease until the president agreed to sign legislation counteracting his immigration order.

Republicans in the House and Senate who prefer that approach have been unable to fully convince their colleagues to sign on, though.

Asked today if his caucus come to a consensus on how to best impede Obama, Boehner indicated that they had not.

'But I will say to you, the House will in fact act,' he told reporters.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday on the Senate floor that the upper chamber had not agreed on a game plan, yet, either.

'We are considering a variety of options,' he said, making it clear that he'd like his members to hold off an a major spending fight during the lame-duck session.

GOP governors and other state leaders were more sure of their plan action by the time Obama had given his national address on Thursday night.

At an annual conference this week in Boca Raton, Florida, the chief executives of both Wisconsin and Texas previewed lawsuits they may launch against Obama over immigration.

'I would go to the courts,' Wisconsin's Scott Walker said Wednesday during a panel at the annual Republican Governors Association gathering. 'This is illegal.

'I think you would be hard-pressed to find anybody -- other than a partisan Democrat -- who wouldn't say this is illegal,' Walked claimed, according to CNN.

Rick Perry, whose time as Texas governor is coming to an end, said his state may also sue Obama.

'I think that’s probably a very real possibility,' Perry, said, arguing that Obama was 'sticking his finger into the eye of the American people.'

'The cost to the people of the state of Texas is an extraordinary amount of money that this President is exacerbating with his announcement that he's going to allow for this executive order,' he said.

It costs Texas roughly $12 million a month to protect the border, he explained.

After Obama's speech on Thursday incoming Texas Governor and current Attorney General Greg Abbott followed up on Perry's threat of legal action with a guarantee that his state would haul Obama to court.

'President Obama has circumvented Congress and deliberately bypassed the will of the American people, eroding the very foundation of our nation’s Constitution and bestowing a legacy of lawlessness,' Abbott said in a statement.

'Texans have witnessed firsthand the costs and consequences caused by President Obama’s dictatorial immigration policy and now we must work together toward a solution in fixing our broken immigration system.

'Following tonight’s pronouncement, I am prepared to immediately challenge President Obama in court, securing our state’s sovereignty and guaranteeing the rule of law as it is intended under the Constitution.'

Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt also committed to a court battle on Thursday night, even before Obama's remarks.

'It is anticipated tonight’s speech will again prove our President sees himself as above the law,' he said. 'Regardless of what the President thinks the law ought to be, our constitution dictates that Congress makes the law, it is the Presidents duty to faithfully execute those laws.

'If the President takes an executive action that violates his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the immigration laws passed by Congress, we will take action to hold him accountable.'

In his speech on Thursday evening Obama acknowledged that the group of people he was now rewarding with work permits had in fact broken the law and needed to pay their debt to society.

Still, he argued it would be better for immigration officials to focus their resources on deporting criminals than it would for them to unnecessarily tear families apart.

'Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mother who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day,' he said.

Boehner said on Friday that by pardoning millions of law breakers, the president was sending the wrong message to other non-citizens,

'The action by the president yesterday will only encourage more people to come here illegally, and putting their lives at risk,' Boehner said. 'We saw the humanitarian crisis at our border last summer, how horrific it was. Well, next summer it could be worse.

'And this action also punishes those who have obeyed the law and waited their turn,' he added.

The Ohio Republican said he agreed with the president that America's immigration system is broken. 'But fixing it starts with a commitment to working through the democratic process and enforcing the laws that the president is sworn faithfully to execute,' he said.

Obama is 'making it impossible to build the trust necessary to work together,' he contended.

'You can’t ask the elected representatives of the people to trust you to enforce the law if you’re constantly demonstrating that you can’t be trusted to enforce the law.

Defending himself on Thursday, Obama said his actions were 'not only lawful, they're the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican President and every single Democratic President for the past half century.'

'And to those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.'

If president thinks House Republicans were slow to enact the kinds of reforms he wanted to see before, there's no chance they'll take them up now, Boehner said Friday, reminding reporters of his numerous warnings to Obama that unilateral executive action would not be welcomed by the GOP.

'With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek. And, as I told the president yesterday, he’s damaging the presidency itself,' Boehner said.

Boehner's comments on Friday while direct were substantially more toned down than those of some of his Republican colleagues in the House who blasted Obama in a flood of statements before and after his Thursday night after speech.

One of the most colorful digs came from Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who denounced the president for issuing an 'oral royal decree that will be followed by a written regal decree, as any good monarch would do.'

'This president is single-handedly creating a constitutional crisis and hurting the citizens he took an oath to protect and defend.

'President Obama’s regal proclamation is literally gambling away jobs for hard-working Americans, so naturally he would go to Las Vegas, perhaps Caesar’s Palace,' he said, referencing a popular Vegas casino.

On Wednesday retiring Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann slammed Obama for creating 'illiterate' Democratic voters with his executive action.

'The social cost will be profound on the U.S. taxpayer – millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language,' Bachmann told reporters gathered in the Capitol, the Washington Post reported.

'Even though the president says they won’t be able to vote, we all know that many, in all likelihood, will vote,' she said.

Former GOP presidential nominee and sitting Arizona Sen. John McCain encouraged his fellow Republican lawmakers on Thursday to steer clear of charged language like Bachmann's, cautioning them that it will turn Hispanic voters off to the GOP's message.

'It only takes a couple' of insensitive comments, he said, for voters to develop a negative perception of Republicans.

'That’s the trouble with having some of these new young punks around here,' he told the Post. 'They ought to listen to us old geezers.'

Franklin D. Roosevelt & Obama On JOBS, Taxes & Social Security: "The New Deal" (Videos)

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform. That is, Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. The New Deal produced a political realignment, making the Democratic Party the majority (as well as the party which held the White House for seven out of nine Presidential terms from 1933 to 1969), with its base in liberal ideas, big city machines, and newly empowered labor unions, ethnic minorities, and the white South. The Republicans were split, either opposing the entire New Deal as an enemy of business and growth, or accepting some of it and promising to make it more efficient. The realignment crystallized into the New Deal Coalition that dominated most American elections into the 1960s, while the opposition Conservative Coalition largely controlled Congress from 1938 to 1964.

Historians distinguish a "First New Deal" (1933) and a "Second New Deal" (1934–36). Some programs were declared unconstitutional, and others were repealed during World War II. The "First New Deal" (1933) dealt with diverse groups, from banking and railroads to industry and farming, all of which demanded help for economic recovery. A "Second New Deal" in 1934–36 included the Wagner Act to promote labor unions, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social Security Act, and new programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. The final major items of New Deal legislation were the creation of the United States Housing Authority and Farm Security Administration, both in 1937, then the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set maximum hours and minimum wages for most categories of workers[1] and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938.

Despite Roosevelt campaigning heavily against anti-New Deal Republicans and anti-New Deal Democrats, Republicans gained many seats in Congress in the 1938 midterm elections and the Democrats opponents of the New Deal retained their seats, resulting in the WPA, CCC and other relief programs being shut down during World War II by the Conservative Coalition (i.e., the opponents of the New Deal in Congress); they argued the return of full employment made them superfluous. As a Republican President in the 1950s, Dwight D. Eisenhower left the New Deal largely intact.

In the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society took New Deal policies further. After 1974, laissez faire views grew in support, calling for deregulation of the economy and ending New Deal regulation of transportation, banking and communications in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[3] Several New Deal programs remain active, with some still operating under the original names, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The largest programs still in existence today are the Social Security System and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Sources: White House, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Netanyahu's Congressional Speech: Compromises, Bin Laden & Nuclear Weapons

Today Instead Of Bashing Pres. Obama Over His "1967 Border" Comments, Israeli Prime Minister"Bibi" Netanyahu Delivered An Allied Friendly Exhortation Before Congress On His Country's Due Diligence To Help Maintain Middle East Peace.

Netanyahu's Kind Words Further Proves All Of The Previous Unnecessary Controversy Stirred Up By The Mainstream Media Following Pres. Obama's Statements Was Nothing More Than 2012 Political Drama Attempting To Make Him Appear Anti-Semitic.

(I Presume That In Secret Bibi Realized It Might Not Be Wise To Fight With Pres. Obama On This Matter. Fighting Is NOT The Same As Negotiating & Rarely Achieves Results.)

It Also Proves Bibi's Desires To Keep Israel's Foreign Policy Partnership With America Strong.

Regarding Pres. Obama's "1967 Border" Comments, He Only Stated In Public What Many World Leaders Have Been Saying For Years In Private, Including Former U.S. President George W. Bush.

Going Forward I'm Very Happy To See That Both Pres. Obama & Benjamin Netanyahu Will Remain Committed To Israel's Security.

However Compromises Are Necessary To Ensure Future Peace With Palestine.

And Even If A Reasonable Peace Agreement Can NOT Be Reached This Year, Something Definitely Needs To Be Done ASAP To Protect Israel's Borders & Keep Her From Being Blown Off The Map By Iran's Nuclear Weapons.

ALERT:

Can Anyone Stop Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad From Using Nuclear Weapons Against Israel Of Which Will No Doubt Cause World War 3?

Stay Tuned.

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

God Bless Israel & The United States Of America!!!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Netanyahu lays out Palestinian settlement terms

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday that he is prepared to make "painful compromises" for a peace deal with the Palestinians, but reiterated his insistence that Israel will never return to the boundaries that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.

Netanyahu said he is prepared to be "generous" in regard to the size of a future Palestinian state, but stressed the importance of keeping control over certain densely settled areas within the West Bank. He stressed that Israeli security will be a major consideration in the establishment of future boundaries.

The prime minister flatly ruled out any so-called "right of return" for Palestinian families who left Israel after the state's founding in 1948.

"Jews from around the world have a right to immigrate to the Jewish state," Netanyahu said. "Palestinians from around the world should have a right to immigrate, if they so choose, to a Palestinian state. This means that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel."

The prime minister blamed Palestinians for refusing to recognize the Jewish state's right to exist, and repeated his demand that Jerusalem remain united as Israel's capital.

Netanyahu's speech in the House chamber -- a rare honor for a foreign leader -- was billed by many observers as a response to President Barack Obama's call last Thursday for peace talks based on the 1967 lines with "mutually agreed" land swaps.

Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, were both on hand for the Israeli leader's remarks. Netanyahu was warmly received by Democrats and Republicans alike.

"I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace," Netanyahu declared. "In a genuine peace, we'll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland."

"Some settlements will end up beyond Israel's (current) borders," he acknowledged. But "Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967."

Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 war. The Sinai has since been returned to Egypt. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, a move not recognized by the international community and condemned by Syria, which still claims the land.

The more militant group Hamas now controls Gaza, while the more moderate Palestinian group Fatah administers the West Bank, site of a growing number of Israeli settlements. Ultimately, the Palestinians are aiming to unite Gaza and the West Bank under the authority of a new state.

Netanyahu flatly ruled out negotiations with Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by both the United States and Israel. He also dismissed prospects of United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state later this year.

"Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated," he said.

At the same time, Netanyahu insisted Israel must be allowed to maintain a military presence along the Jordan River, the eastern boundary of the West Bank.

For their part, Palestinian officials have refused to enter into new talks with Israel on the decades-old conflict until Israel stops building settlements on occupied West Bank land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

Looking beyond the dispute with the Palestinians, Netanyahu highlighted the growing danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

"Time is running out," Netanyahu warned. "The greatest danger facing humanity could soon be upon us: a militant Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons."

"If history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously," he said. "We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. When we say never again, we mean never again. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself."

The Israeli leader congratulated the Obama administration for the recent U.S. military mission resulting in the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

"Congratulations America," he said. "You got bin Laden. Good riddance."

One top Palestinian official blasted the tone of Netanyahu's remarks, telling CNN that the speech was "more talking about war than about piece."

This is "annoying to the greatest extent," said Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Fatah.

Among other things, Shaath criticized Netanyahu's refusal to consider a right of return for the descendents of Palestinians who left around the time of Israel's founding.

Israel is "talking about the right for a people to go back to a land they thought they had 4,000 years ago, but for refugees from Palestine that were driven out of their land only 60 years ago, this is an impossibility for them to get back to their homes," Shaath said.

Having Israeli troops on both sides of a demilitarized West Bank "doesn't make (a future Palestinian nation) a sovereign state by any chance," he asserted.

Without serious peace talks, the Palestinian Authority will seek a formal recognition of statehood at the United Nations in September, Shaath insisted. He dismissed the "furor" over the role of Hamas in such talks, calling it a "pretext for not going into any serious negotiations."

Shaath also said the repeated applause for Netanyahu by members of Congress calls into "serious question ... the even-handedness of America when it comes to a question that is that important to the people of Palestine and the people of the Middle East."

Netanyahu's speech on Capitol Hill was disrupted briefly by a protester who was heard screaming, "Equal rights for Palestine," before police escorted her out of the chamber.

On Monday night, activists from the American anti-war activist group Code Pink interrupted Netanyahu's speech to the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee at least twice. The group criticized what it called "the theft of Palestinian land" and the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

AIPAC is a major force in U.S. politics, drawing top administration and congressional leaders to its conventions.

In his own speech to AIPAC on Sunday, Obama asserted that the "status quo" in the Israel-Palestinian conflict is unsustainable. The president also insisted once again that Israel's pre-1967 borders should be the starting point for negotiations over the shape of a future Palestinian state.

The proposal is a long-standing formulation in peace talks that Obama has now expressed as official U.S. policy for the first time.

"It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation," Obama said to applause. "It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years," including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides."

But Obama also criticized the Palestinian push to seek U.N. recognition of an independent state, and a Palestinian Authority-Hamas agreement to hold unifying elections in 2012.


View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, FBI, MSNBC, NY Times, Tehran Times, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

"How Long? Not Long!" By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Video & Text)

Our God Is Marching On!

March 25, 1965. Montgomery, Ala.

My dear and abiding friends, Ralph Abernathy, and to all of the distinguished Americans seated here on the rostrum, my friends and co-workers of the state of Alabama, and to all of the freedom-loving people who have assembled here this afternoon from all over our nation and from all over the world: Last Sunday, more than eight thousand of us started on a mighty walk from Selma, Alabama. We have walked through desolate valleys and across the trying hills. We have walked on meandering highways and rested our bodies on rocky byways. Some of our faces are burned from the outpourings of the sweltering sun. Some have literally slept in the mud. We have been drenched by the rains. [Audience:] (Speak) Our bodies are tired and our feet are somewhat sore.

But today as I stand before you and think back over that great march, I can say, as Sister Pollard said—a seventy-year-old Negro woman who lived in this community during the bus boycott—and one day, she was asked while walking if she didn’t want to ride. And when she answered, "No," the person said, "Well, aren’t you tired?" And with her ungrammatical profundity, she said, "My feets is tired, but my soul is rested." (Yes, sir. All right) And in a real sense this afternoon, we can say that our feet are tired, (Yes, sir) but our souls are rested.

They told us we wouldn’t get here. And there were those who said that we would get here only over their dead bodies, (Well. Yes, sir. Talk) but all the world today knows that we are here and we are standing before the forces of power in the state of Alabama saying, "We ain’t goin’ let nobody turn us around." (Yes, sir. Speak) [Applause]

Now it is not an accident that one of the great marches of American history should terminate in Montgomery, Alabama. (Yes, sir) Just ten years ago, in this very city, a new philosophy was born of the Negro struggle. Montgomery was the first city in the South in which the entire Negro community united and squarely faced its age-old oppressors. (Yes, sir. Well) Out of this struggle, more than bus [de]segregation was won; a new idea, more powerful than guns or clubs was born. Negroes took it and carried it across the South in epic battles (Yes, sir. Speak) that electrified the nation (Well) and the world.

Yet, strangely, the climactic conflicts always were fought and won on Alabama soil. After Montgomery’s, heroic confrontations loomed up in Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and elsewhere. But not until the colossus of segregation was challenged in Birmingham did the conscience of America begin to bleed. White America was profoundly aroused by Birmingham because it witnessed the whole community of Negroes facing terror and brutality with majestic scorn and heroic courage. And from the wells of this democratic spirit, the nation finally forced Congress (Well) to write legislation (Yes, sir) in the hope that it would eradicate the stain of Birmingham. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave Negroes some part of their rightful dignity, (Speak, sir) but without the vote it was dignity without strength. (Yes, sir)

Once more the method of nonviolent resistance (Yes) was unsheathed from its scabbard, and once again an entire community was mobilized to confront the adversary. (Yes, sir) And again the brutality of a dying order shrieks across the land. Yet, Selma, Alabama, became a shining moment in the conscience of man. If the worst in American life lurked in its dark streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it. (Yes, sir. Speak) There never was a moment in American history (Yes, sir) more honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger (Yes) at the side of its embattled Negroes.

The confrontation of good and evil compressed in the tiny community of Selma (Speak, speak) generated the massive power (Yes, sir. Yes, sir) to turn the whole nation to a new course. A president born in the South (Well) had the sensitivity to feel the will of the country, (Speak, sir) and in an address that will live in history as one of the most passionate pleas for human rights ever made by a president of our nation, he pledged the might of the federal government to cast off the centuries-old blight. President Johnson rightly praised the courage of the Negro for awakening the conscience of the nation. (Yes, sir)

On our part we must pay our profound respects to the white Americans who cherish their democratic traditions over the ugly customs and privileges of generations and come forth boldly to join hands with us. (Yes, sir) From Montgomery to Birmingham, (Yes, sir) from Birmingham to Selma, (Yes, sir) from Selma back to Montgomery, (Yes) a trail wound in a circle long and often bloody, yet it has become a highway up from darkness. (Yes, sir) Alabama has tried to nurture and defend evil, but evil is choking to death in the dusty roads and streets of this state. (Yes, sir. Speak, sir) So I stand before you this afternoon (Speak, sir. Well) with the conviction that segregation is on its deathbed in Alabama, and the only thing uncertain about it is how costly the segregationists and Wallace will make the funeral. (Go ahead. Yes, sir) [Applause]

Our whole campaign in Alabama has been centered around the right to vote. In focusing the attention of the nation and the world today on the flagrant denial of the right to vote, we are exposing the very origin, the root cause, of racial segregation in the Southland. Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. There were no laws segregating the races then. And as the noted historian, C. Vann Woodward, in his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, clearly points out, the segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.

Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.

To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.

If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion. (Yes, sir)

Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike (Uh huh) resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; (Yes, sir) they segregated southern churches from Christianity (Yes, sir); they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; (Yes, sir) and they segregated the Negro from everything. (Yes, sir) That’s what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes, sir)

We’ve come a long way since that travesty of justice was perpetrated upon the American mind. James Weldon Johnson put it eloquently. He said:

We have come over a way

That with tears hath been watered. (Yes, sir)

We have come treading our paths

Through the blood of the slaughtered. (Yes, sir)

Out of the gloomy past, (Yes, sir)

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam

Of our bright star is cast. (Speak, sir)

Today I want to tell the city of Selma, (Tell them, Doctor) today I want to say to the state of Alabama, (Yes, sir) today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world, that we are not about to turn around. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir)

Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. The burning of our churches will not deter us. (Yes, sir) The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. (Yes, sir) We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) The wanton release of their known murderers would not discourage us. We are on the move now. (Yes, sir) Like an idea whose time has come, (Yes, sir) not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. (Yes, sir) We are moving to the land of freedom. (Yes, sir)

Let us therefore continue our triumphant march (Uh huh) to the realization of the American dream. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated housing (Yes, sir) until every ghetto or social and economic depression dissolves, and Negroes and whites live side by side in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. (Yes, sir) Let us march on segregated schools (Let us march, Tell it) until every vestige of segregated and inferior education becomes a thing of the past, and Negroes and whites study side-by-side in the socially-healing context of the classroom.

Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until no American parent has to skip a meal so that their children may eat. (Yes, sir) March on poverty (Let us march) until no starved man walks the streets of our cities and towns (Yes, sir) in search of jobs that do not exist. (Yes, sir) Let us march on poverty (Let us march) until wrinkled stomachs in Mississippi are filled, (That's right) and the idle industries of Appalachia are realized and revitalized, and broken lives in sweltering ghettos are mended and remolded.

Let us march on ballot boxes, (Let’s march) march on ballot boxes until race-baiters disappear from the political arena.

Let us march on ballot boxes until the salient misdeeds of bloodthirsty mobs (Yes, sir) will be transformed into the calculated good deeds of orderly citizens. (Speak, Doctor)

Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march) until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence.

Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march) until we send to our city councils (Yes, sir), state legislatures, (Yes, sir) and the United States Congress, (Yes, sir) men who will not fear to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.

Let us march on ballot boxes (Let us march. March) until brotherhood becomes more than a meaningless word in an opening prayer, but the order of the day on every legislative agenda.

Let us march on ballot boxes (Yes) until all over Alabama God’s children will be able to walk the earth in decency and honor.

There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense. (Yes, sir) The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho (Yes) and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down. (Yes, sir) I like that old Negro spiritual, (Yes, sir) "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." In its simple, yet colorful, depiction (Yes, sir) of that great moment in biblical history, it tells us that:

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, (Tell it)

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, (Yes, sir)

And the walls come tumbling down. (Yes, sir. Tell it)

Up to the walls of Jericho they marched, spear in hand. (Yes, sir)

"Go blow them ramhorns," Joshua cried,

"‘Cause the battle am in my hand." (Yes, sir)

These words I have given you just as they were given us by the unknown, long-dead, dark-skinned originator. (Yes, sir) Some now long-gone black bard bequeathed to posterity these words in ungrammatical form, (Yes, sir) yet with emphatic pertinence for all of us today. (Uh huh)

The battle is in our hands. And we can answer with creative nonviolence the call to higher ground to which the new directions of our struggle summons us. (Yes, sir) The road ahead is not altogether a smooth one. (No) There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. But we must keep going.

In the glow of the lamplight on my desk a few nights ago, I gazed again upon the wondrous sign of our times, full of hope and promise of the future. (Uh huh) And I smiled to see in the newspaper photographs of many a decade ago, the faces so bright, so solemn, of our valiant heroes, the people of Montgomery. To this list may be added the names of all those (Yes) who have fought and, yes, died in the nonviolent army of our day: Medgar Evers, (Speak) three civil rights workers in Mississippi last summer, (Uh huh) William Moore, as has already been mentioned, (Yes, sir) the Reverend James Reeb, (Yes, sir) Jimmy Lee Jackson, (Yes, sir) and four little girls in the church of God in Birmingham on Sunday morning. (Yes, sir) But in spite of this, we must go on and be sure that they did not die in vain. (Yes, sir) The pattern of their feet as they walked through Jim Crow barriers in the great stride toward freedom is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, (Yes, sir) and the world rocks beneath their tread. (Yes, sir)

My people, my people, listen. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands. (Yes, sir) The battle is in our hands in Mississippi and Alabama and all over the United States. (Yes, sir) I know there is a cry today in Alabama, (Uh huh) we see it in numerous editorials: "When will Martin Luther King, SCLC, SNCC, and all of these civil rights agitators and all of the white clergymen and labor leaders and students and others get out of our community and let Alabama return to normalcy?"

But I have a message that I would like to leave with Alabama this evening. (Tell it) That is exactly what we don’t want, and we will not allow it to happen, (Yes, sir) for we know that it was normalcy in Marion (Yes, sir) that led to the brutal murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson. (Speak) It was normalcy in Birmingham (Yes) that led to the murder on Sunday morning of four beautiful, unoffending, innocent girls. It was normalcy on Highway 80 (Yes, sir) that led state troopers to use tear gas and horses and billy clubs against unarmed human beings who were simply marching for justice. (Speak, sir) It was normalcy by a cafe in Selma, Alabama, that led to the brutal beating of Reverend James Reeb.

It is normalcy all over our country (Yes, sir) which leaves the Negro perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of vast ocean of material prosperity. It is normalcy all over Alabama (Yeah) that prevents the Negro from becoming a registered voter. (Yes) No, we will not allow Alabama (Go ahead) to return to normalcy. [Applause]

The only normalcy that we will settle for (Yes, sir) is the normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all of God’s children. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. (Yes, sir) The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice.

And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before committed to this struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering in many of the black belt counties of Alabama, many areas of Mississippi, many areas of Louisiana. I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. But if we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions.

And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man. (Yes)

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?" (Yes, sir)

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because "no lie can live forever." (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (All right. How long) because "you shall reap what you sow." (Yes, sir)

How long? (How long?) Not long: (Not long)

Truth forever on the scaffold, (Speak)

Wrong forever on the throne, (Yes, sir)

Yet that scaffold sways the future, (Yes, sir)

And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow,

Keeping watch above his own.

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Not long) because:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; (Yes, sir)

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; (Yes)

He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; (Yes, sir)

His truth is marching on. (Yes, sir)

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; (Speak, sir)

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. (That’s right)

O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!

Our God is marching on. (Yeah)

Glory, hallelujah! (Yes, sir) Glory, hallelujah! (All right)

Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.


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