This week's featured artist is Pack-FM. A brooklyn emcee who sparked up a bit of controversy with his albums title track "I F*cking Hate Rappers". (featured below) In the song he calls out common for dropping, what many consider, his most commercial album to date. While i agree wholeheartedly that Common took a commercial tone for the sake of relevance some people have questioned Pack's motives. In an interview he answers his critics.
"Well remember "The Bitch In Yoo?" Common was getting at Ice Cube real hard for switching his whole style up to whatever was the flavor of the month and for being in movies. Look at Common now. I think Common is a talented writer, but he's shown that he's not above flippin' the script for the sake of relevance. [No pun intended]. "...."I don't have any beef with Common, I'm just using hom as an example. I come from a different era, where people were held accountable for things and if you felt something about someone, you said it. What good is me holding my tongue going to do? This album is me saying what i think and feel uncensored. "If you hear a name mentioned, it ain't to gain attention. My intention is the same even if I'm blacklisted." So you might hear a rappers name here and there on the record, but it's not to start a publicity beef, its just how I feel."
His album "I Fucking Hate Rappers" is in stores now i highly recommend it to those true hip hop enthusiasts
(Random note on video: Is it me or does Bunning seem a bit senile? Hannity asks "did you have the support of every republican?" he goes off on a tangent about the procedural on goings that led to the vote on the amendment when a simple no only 18 supported it would have sufficed:)
for those who don't feel like watching the entire video Hannity champions Senator Bunning for blocking unemployment extensions for those who have been out of work over 99 days. The argument Bunning uses is that while he sympathizes with those in need of the extension he does not want to do more deficit spending and feels congress needs to come up with a way to pay for it first.
For those who don't know i'm a libertarian so while i disagree with both the timing and the method i do support the idea of pay as we go spending. However i'm also not a fool and understand all media spins so before i blindly support a position i wanted to do a bit more research to figure out the centrifuge.
After digging around a bit i found out that Bunning is at odds with leadership in the GOP. The NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) has launched an exploratory committee to try and find a candidate for Bunning's seat but Bunning had already announced that he planned to run in 2010. So why? well it might be because he's polling 9 points behind every democratic candidate in the state and the GOP feels like some young blood might help they're chances. Regardless of the reason he is an outsider so causing some kind of rift between the conservative and ultra conservative senators will help him make a case in the 2010 mid terms that he is a "true conservative".
Well i guess it's not fair to discredit his actions on the sole purpose that he has something to gain from it. But when you actually look at his position something becomes painfully clear he is a liar. His position is that we should pay for massive spending in this case unemployment as we go. it turns out when it comes to unemployment we actually do. it's called the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA).
In my home state of SC you could be taxed up to 6% of your paycheck to pay for unemployment benefits. In MA you could be taxed almost twice that (11%). So these citizens who payed into the unemployment pool are being denied their fair share of those benefits for what? to make it even worse around $800 billion dollars is collected by the US government through FUTA. According to the CBO the government from 08-09 spent $650 billion dollars on unemployment benefits they collected from us the citizens. So what happens to the rest?
The answer National Defense, Interest payments to the fed, and other budget addends. So in short the government (just like with SSI) does not spend the money they collect from us for these programs on these programs.
Back to Bunning. His premise is wrong. If he wanted to truly be a champion of the american people he wouldn't be blocking unemployment benefits we already paid for and demand that we pay for them again. He would instead demand that our money that we pay for our social insurance programs actually go to our social security programs. That's what he would do if he was a true fiscal conservative. However he is more interested in drumming up a fake issue to use for his own political gain. But that would be asking for a politician to actually care about the american people. Far-fetched.