Yeah, I know it’s not really news anymore when a Republican running for election puts his or her foot in their mouth. The latest gaffe comes from Florida Senate candidate Mike McCalister, who obviously didn’t learn from Sharron Angle’s failed Senate run last year, when he opened his big mouth. McCalister, speaking at the Palms West Republican Club, stated:

“I get asked sometimes where do I stand on the Second and 10th Amendment, and I have a little saying,” he declared. “We need a sign at every harbor, every airport and every road entering our state: ‘You’re entering a 10th Amendment-owned and -operated state, and justice will be served with the Second Amendment.'”

Can you just see the Tea Party audience cheering at the thought of someone violating their interpretation of state rights being shot in the head? On Veterans Day, where we honor people who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the United States shouldn’t we be even more hesitant about resorting to violence? Didn’t that cowboy mentality get us stuck in two wars that have cost us trillions of dollars and more importantly thousands of lives?

To insinuate that someone is infringing on states rights and therefore needs to be “taken care of”, is to encourage domestic terrorism like what was recently being planned by militia members in Georgia. That type of “leadership” won’t save America, it will bring this country to ruin.

This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters’ mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program. The fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.

I was recently invited to perform at the University of Connecticut on November 4th as the principal performer for a “Political Awareness Rally”. About a week before the event I got an email from the organizer, who ironically I met at Occupy Wall St, saying people were concerned about my performance, particularly the song “Occupy (We the 99).”  I thought this was very strange because this is supposed to be an institution of higher learning that welcomes all types of ideas, plus the event was a rally for political awareness. The organizer said he would not censor me, but if I performed it I might not get paid. Then I received an email directly from the comptroller of the Undergraduate Student Government saying specifically I could not perform “Occupy (We the 99).”

I initially agreed to perform only a set of songs the University of Connecticut deemed “not political” because the event had already been advertised around campus and didn’t want to disappoint my fans by not showing up. I also didn’t want to let down the organizers who did a lot of hard work in putting the event together. But when I arrived at the University of Connecticut I had a change of heart. As I looked around the crowd I began to think of all the people around the world occupying for a better tomorrow, being arrested and brutalized by police, sleeping in the cold and rain, sacrificing comfort for freedom. I knew at that moment I had to perform the song, “Occupy (We the 99)” as well as other “political” songs like “Real Gangstas” (about the Wall St bankers), even if it meant I would not get paid. At some point in this movement all of us are going to have to make sacrifices, if we truly want to see real change. The 1% control the 99% with promises of money, access, and comfort; we have to put our own souls above all three.

Sincerely,

Jasiri X

Filmed live at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Pittsburgh by Director Paradise Gray, Jasiri X reconnects with super producer Cynik Lethal to provide a soundtrack for this growing movement that has taken the world by storm. We gonna Occupy!

Also check Davey D’s interview with Jasiri X about the Occupy Movement

I know, I’m probably the only rapper that would think to remix Jay Z and Kanye West’s song Otis from their album Watch the Throne, and channel George H.W.Bush and George Bush. But when I heard Jay Z’s first line, “I invented swag” my first thought was the line “I invented crack” which brought me to George Bush Sr., who was Ronald Regan’s VP and former head of the CIA when that whole Iran Contra scandal went down. I figured he could take as much credit for crack as Jay Z can for “swag”, although I wouldn’t want to take credit for either.

The rest of the song really just wrote itself, however the parallels between the elder Bush and the Son of a Bush (shout out to Public Enemy) were pretty striking. Both illegally invaded countries (Panama and Afghanistan) and went to war with Iraq. And both had some pretty bad economic policies that hurt our communities in the worse way. It’s amazing to me how their histories have been whitewashed, especially Bush Jr. I’m surprised that dude doesn’t get hit with rotten tomatoes everytime he walks out of the house.

So check out George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush going in over the Otis instrumental on their less than stellar records as President of the United States, reminding us how America got so messed up. (Lyrics are below)

LYRICS
George H.W. Bush -I invented crack
the highest hit with them scientists in the lab
proof
not hard to find it
read Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance
Truth
New terror alert Qaddafi
We tried to kill him in the 80s but were sloppy
Bombs hit his compound every wall was knock down
his infant daughter got found dead under a rock pile

George W. Bush -Damn W bush where the hell you been
Obama’s getting blamed for all of ya failures kid
Left trillions in debt they acting like I never did
Kanye even apologized now we’re hella friends
They say I’m stupid but I was dumb before
but they so crazy they forgot about my other war
and they don’t even mention my other other war
Almost destroyed America they still love me more

George H.W. Bush -Skull and Bones fresh
bomb you with the stealth
I’m bout to call the CIA on my self
I was the first ta
go after Saddam Hussein I tried to murk ya
bombed Iraq with those missiles air to surface
so we would have cheap oil for us to purchase
Iran contra no need for bail
I pardoned everybody they never going to jail

George W. Bush -A born again christian I’m never going to hell
my book about decisions is never going to sale
300 pages of crap it’s better in the shredder
I made history the worst president ever
I’m in Crawford with the golfers
cause of my cuts there’s just no job offers
now everybody in they house getting foreclosed
I’m done I’ll hit you ya tomorrow

George H.W. Bush -Welcome to Panama
Sent troops to get Noriega I am the law
he had pedico in kilos
we bought it from him that’s how come that we know
4000 dead it makes no difference
nobody cares cause it’s just less immigrants
no coincidence my son went from governor
to president leaving a debt so big we can’t get under from

George W. Bush -Can’t you see commercial jets flying over you
for seven minutes I froze like what the hell Imma do
put my Arab friends on planes with no kinda proof
even though they said the highjackers were Saudi too
Then I let Osama escape like the hell with it
so I could invade Iraq with fake intelligence
and over 6,000 troops died
but hey keep being mad at the new guy

Most people when they hear about Pittsburgh think of one thing…the Steelers. Unless you’ve lived here or visited the neighborhoods of Homewood, the Hill District, or parts of the Northside (to name a few), you probably don’t know about the level of violence in Pittsburgh. If you watched our video “America’s Most Livable City” you might assume that a city with the poorest Black community in the nation, also has it’s far share of homicides, and you’d be right.

This year, Pennsylvania finally relinquished it’s title as the state with the most Black homicides, now we’re in second place behind Missouri. Most people credit Philly for that dubious distinction, but last year Pittsburgh saw it’s number of murders increase by 41%. To make matters even worse, Pittsburgh Police’s homicide clearance rate dropped to it’s second lowest rate in a decade. Plus the city’s new crime prevention program called, “Pittsburgh’s Initiative to Reduce Crime” is already being labeled a failure.

According to the New Pittsburgh Courier:

“The average homicide victim in 2010 was a 33–year-old Black male with four prior arrests, most likely shot on the North Side, in the Hill District or the East End with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol in the early morning hours of a Saturday in July. The average shooter was a 29-year-old Black male with four prior arrests. The motive was likely retaliation. And according to the clearance-rate data, there is a 46 percent chance that he is still at large.”

This is why we decided to dedicate our latest video to the problem of violence in our community. “City of Steel“ was filmed on Pittsburgh’s Northside at, Northview Heights housing project, Allegheny County General Hospital, Zone No.1 Police Station, Union Dale Cemetery, and the newly reopened state prison, SCI Pittsburgh. “City of Steel“ was produced by Rel!g!on and directed by Paradise Gray.