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| When this campaign ends, after future presidents have come and gone, and when today's young people are grown old, history will remember Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008, as the day a black man became the presidential nominee of a major party. The roll call of states Wednesday night at the Democratic convention means Denver joins Springfield, Ill., and Washington, D.C. in an arc that spans centuries which saw slavery, emancipation, lynchings, Jim Crow, lunch counter bigotry, voting rights, integration, oratory, intermarriage, black pride, assassination, riots, marches — so many marches — and now a nomination. |
| BET starts a weekly news program on Friday described as a cross between Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher with a black perspective. Called "The Truth with Jeff Johnson" and airing at 11 p.m. on Fridays, the program stars a BET personality who has also been an activist for the NAACP and People for the American Way. Its debut is timed for the Democratic National Convention. |
| The Democratic Party "takes impeachment off the table," finances "an illegal and immoral war," fails to "even mention Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors in their Congressional agenda for the first 100 days," and aids and abets "illegal spying on us" - yet has the gall to call itself the party of "change" and "hope." As Democrats prepared their corporate-financed nominating convention, Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney told protestors: "We declare our willingness to be radical in pursuit of peace and in our hunger for justice. We can see clearly now who the real stickup artists are and that's why we're in Denver!" |
| For readers who’ve been strangely unconscious for the past 10 years and haven’t heard of GTA, it’s been around for just over a decade and recently released its fourth edition. In its first week of sales in April 2008, six million copies flew off shelves, at a cost of $60-$90 a pop, depending on how advanced a version was purchased. Worldwide, GTA has sold more than 70 million copies since its inception. If you have a male child in the house there’s probably a copy of GTA in your household. And even if he doesn’t own the game, odds are that he’s played the game before, and “killed” a few prostitutes! |
| With her husband looking on tenderly and her supporters watching with tears in their eyes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton deferred her own dreams on Tuesday night and delivered an emphatic plea at the Democratic National Convention to unite behind her rival, Senator Barack Obama, no matter what ill will lingered. Declaring herself to be “a proud supporter of Barack Obama,” Mrs. Clinton urged Democrats to put aside their loyalty to her and unite behind Mr. Obama — or risk continuing Bush administration policies under the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain. |
| Tax and accounting loopholes that largely benefit rich taxpayers and companies cost the U.S. government $20 billion a year even as the pay gap between chief executives and employees has widened, two groups said on Monday. The biggest loss comes from a "stock option accounting double standard" that allows corporations paying executives stock options to deduct more than their actual expenses, they said. |
| ScheduleMonday, August 25 – One NationBarack Obama’s story is an American story that reflects a life of struggle, opportunity and responsibility like those faced by Americans everyday. The opening night of the Convention will highlight Barack’s life story, his commitment to change, and the voices of Americans who are calling for a new direction for this country. Official Site: http://www.demconvention.com/ |
| Barack Obama tapped as his running mate a man whose dramatic life story rivals his own, and holds political appeal far beyond the foreign-policy expertise that is Biden's most obvious asset. The Delaware senator balances this ticket in many other ways. With his working-class background, Biden could help Obama fight his portrayal as a candidate of the elites, and win over the women voters who passionately supported Hillary Rodham Clinton. He's 65 years old to Obama's 47, Catholic to Obama's Protestant. Unlike Obama, he didn't attend Ivy League schools. |
| The United States has agreed to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by next June and from the rest of the country by the end of 2011 if conditions in Iraq remain relatively stable, according to Iraqi and American officials involved in negotiating a security accord governing American forces there. American officials stressed repeatedly that meeting the timetables depended on the security situation in Iraq, where sectarian killings and attacks on American troops have declined sharply over the past year from the peak levels in 2006 and 2007. |
| Don't lower yourself to speak to rappers! Just because you are African-American, don't allow the press to make you step down from the plate of being one of the most powerful men in the world to address a comment from a rapper, no matter how great he or she is. If the Dixie Chicks stand up and attack McCain, the press already knows it's almost worthless to ask him about it. He wouldn't have a clue who they are and, in the end, and he wouldn't care about what they said because he is applying for the job of the most powerful man in the world. He knows it's politics as usual. |
| The new king of hip-hop wealth banked $100 million after taxes on one deal alone when his stake in VitaminWater's parent, Glacéau, was bought by Coca-Cola as part of a $4.1 billion deal. 50's portfolio also includes the popular G-Unit clothing line and record label, plus films, videogames and a slew of platinum albums, including last year's Curtis. Also in the works: a mining partnership with South African billionaire Partrice Motsepe. |
| Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress, died Wednesday evening after suffering a brain hemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurysm. She was 58. "She poured her heart and soul into her job," said U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. "She worked so hard and gave everything she could. I'm devastated. Wherever we'd go, we'd speak of each other as brother and sister. It's an incalculable loss." Tubbs Jones represented Ohio's heavily Democratic 11th District for five terms. She was the first black woman to serve on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and the first to serve as a common pleas judge in Ohio. |
| Racism in the United States no longer involves fat sheriffs spewing prejudice at young black people trying to enter college, black maids sitting in the wrong places on buses, or black workers attempting to eat at white-only lunch counters. Today, it goes about its business quietly and in the shadows. Racism continues to damage communities of color but it damages the dominant white community as well. It renders our society more vulnerable to fascism. Since Gordon Allport's ground breaking 1954 study, The Nature of Prejudice, psychologists acknowledge that racism harms those who benefit from it as surely as those it disenfranchises. White people receive unearned and undeserved benefits at the expense of their peers of color. |
| Prices for goods purchased by American businesses surged more than expected in July and have jumped by nearly 10 percent over the last year — the sharpest increase since 1981. “There is virtually nothing that we have touched in the last six months that hasn’t increased,” said Gary O’Neal, a division manager at Central Plains Steel in Wichita, Kan., which distributes steel to manufacturers of construction and farming equipment. “The prices have increased so rapidly and so high compared to historically where they’ve been. It’s just been uncharted territory.” |
| Just during the time Rice has served in the Bush administration, we bombed, invaded and occupied Afghanistan; did the same to Iraq; repeatedly bombed Somalia, killing all sorts of civilians; fed bombs to Israel as they invaded and bombed Lebanon; top political officials (led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman) have repeatedly threatened, and advocated, that the same be done to a whole host of other countries, including Iran and Syria. That's to say nothing of the virtually countless interventions and bombings in the pre-Bush, "peacetime" years -- from the Balkans and Panama to Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and on and on and on. |
| Mr. Obama's brand management, unprecedented in presidential politics, shows pitch-perfect understanding of the keys to appealing to the youngest voters. The MYBO site shows that Mr. Obama's campaign has made the leap from CRM (customer relationship management) to CMR (customer-managed relationship) better than many commercial marketers, according to Ms. Mooney. "Young people want to be in control of their relationship with a brand. They want to customize and personalize," as they can on iTunes, Mobile Me and YouLocate. The campaign's site allows this with its use of tagging, discussion boards, photo uploads and other interactive elements |
| During its golden age Black radio was exciting because it allowed listeners to hear new music; it made listeners enthusiastic about the listening experience because the jocks viewed their uniqueness as a strength. Now we’re forced to hear the same ten songs by the same five artists over and over, played by disc jockeys who promise not to talk too much. Today’s mainstream Black radio does not deal with Black issues in the unapologetic manner that helped it make a connection with the community. Bob Law’s show, Night Talk, was popular not solely because it was syndicated. It was popular because Bob Law’s approach to politics and culture was relevant, and the show’s content was potent. |
| The former Master P described BBTV as “a family-friendly network that will provide positive content for a black and brown culture that will appeal to all races with a goal to bring people of color a choice when turning on their television.” Miller said BBTV’s content will include health and fitness; animation; financial planning; reality TV; sitcoms; dramas; movies; “responsible” hip-hop music and videos; politics; sports and entertainment news; educational children's shows; and teen and family programming. |
| The 29-year-old is Kasseem Mike Dean, better known as Swizz Beatz. Since starting his career when he was 16, Dean has been the creative force behind records that have collectively sold more than 100 million copies, producing hits for hip-hop stars including Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Beyoncé and DMX. As chief of his own label, Full Surface Records, he oversees a stable of artists that includes singer Mashonda and rapper Cassidy. Last summer he released his first solo rap album, One Man Band Man, with guest appearances by Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Chris Martin of Coldplay. |
| Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced that he would resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism. His resignation came after 10 days of intense political maneuvering in Pakistan, and cleared the way for the four-month-old coalition government to choose a new president by a vote of Parliament and the provincial assemblies. But there were intense concerns in Washington that Mr. Musharraf’s departure would open a new era of instability in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country of 165 million people, as the fragile coalition jockeys for his share of power. |
| Big Media and their sock puppets at the FCC have engineered a massive theft of public resources -- the giveaway of more than ten thousand newly minted digital TV channels to themselves. They have finagled the regulatory process to exclude community groups, unions, local entrepreneurs, women, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, colleges, universities or local government entities from even being able to ask about getting channels for themselves, and imposed a news blackout on their evil deed. Their theft is settled law now, to be consummated in February 2009. |
| Russia’s military offensive into Georgia has jolted the Bush administration’s relationship with Moscow, senior officials said Thursday, forcing a wholesale reassessment of American dealings with Russia and jeopardizing talks on everything from halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions to reducing strategic arsenals to cooperation on missiles defenses. “Russia’s behavior over the past week has called into question the entire premise of that dialogue and has profound implications for our security relationship going forward, both bilaterally and with NATO,” |
| Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050. |
| Last week, the self-styled "Rev Run" was publishing his first book, dispensing wisdom on how to make parenting "cool" again and urging young black fathers to play with their children. "As a society, we tend to celebrate the people who run big companies, hit a lot of home-runs, star in movies and yes, even sell a lot of records." said Simmons. But we don't pay as much attention to the people who simply do a great job of raising their kids." |
| Record numbers of college students are lining up for financial aid - and asking for more of it - as the nation's economic woes hit campuses across the country. Nationally, 8.9 million students filed federal student aid forms during the first half of 2008, a 16.3 percent increase over the same period last year. "What we are seeing is more people filling out requests for financial aid, and for those who do, more people are qualifying and the aggregate need is increasing," |
| Both the left and the right say they stand for economic growth. So should voters trying to decide between the two simply look at it as a matter of choosing alternative management teams? Failures to promote social solidarity can have other costs, not the least of which are the social and private expenditures required to protect property and incarcerate criminals. It is estimated that within a few years, America will have more people working in the security business than in education. A year in prison can cost more than a year at Harvard. The cost of incarcerating two million Americans -- one of the highest per capita rates (pdf) in the world -- should be viewed as a subtraction from GDP, yet it is added on. |
| John McCain has given just as many conflicting explanations of his adultery that he committed with his now-wife Cindy against his first wife. Yet, ABC isn't exploring those apparent lies. Instead, ABC is focusing on John Edwards' inconsistencies when explaining his extramarital affair. So they choose to not report the news about the GOP presidential candidate, but do report the same news about the Democrat who isn't a presidential candidate at all. |
| Russia expanded its attacks on Georgia on Sunday, moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces during three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said. The military action, which has involved air, naval and missile attacks, is the largest engagement by Russian forces outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union. |
| Young people between the ages of 18 and 29 who have not gone to college are not involved in the political process. When people are not involved in their government, it is not good for democracy. Moreover, if people who have completed a sentence from felony charges are still not voting because they continue to live with the stigma of the past, it is not good for humanity. We are living in a country where 67 percent of young people ages 18-29 who have not gone to college do not believe they can make a difference in their communities. These sentiments are evidence that we are doing something wrong. |
Isaac Hayes, the baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65. "Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes — the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it."
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| With just ninety days left in the election it's come down to this: our energy policy and a good deal of this presidential campaign are being discussed through the lens of Paris Hilton. What a big goof it all is! If you just ignore all the soldiers and civilians dying in the Mideast, and all the millions losing their homes and their jobs at home, you could really see the lighter side of it all. Of course, it's not exactly a surprise that the Republican election machine would resort to trying to make the entire election into an issueless sideshow. I mean, what else do they have? |
| Urban media company Radio One yesterday reported a second-quarter loss of $11.7 million as it contends with an industry-wide decline in radio advertising revenue and expands its Internet efforts. The company said average ad prices were down 5 percent as budget-conscious companies have tightened up and shifted spending to the Web. |
| Proponents of Puerto Rican statehood, independence and commonwealth disagree on the island's political future, but they all seem to agree to remain silent on how the issue of race affects Puerto Rico's political status. The political parties have diminished the issue of racism and White Supremacy, by labeling it an "American problem," that has no political relevance to Puerto Rico's racial democracy. Most of the island's population is viewed as non-white by the Washington policy makers. However, Puerto Rico’s political leadership in contrast is mostly "White" or Creoles of European descent, educated at the elite schools of the United States, differing little from the elites of other Latin America’s nations. |
| The collapse of the housing bubble is likely to eliminate most, if not all, of the gains that families had made in accumulating wealth over the last two decades, according to a new study from the Center for Economic Policy & Research in Washington, DC. If housing prices fall another 10%, as they seem likely to do, the study estimates that families will have a net worth anywhere from 56% to 67% less than they had in 2004. That corresponds to an average decline of $41,000 in median wealth and show, according to the authors, that homeownership is not always an effective way to generate and accumulate wealth. |
| Today marks seven years since the day President Bush received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX and stayed on vacation the rest of August 2001. Here’s how the administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report: "President Bush" did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. |
| The nation’s employers eliminated 51,000 jobs in July, the seventh consecutive contraction in the labor market, as the unemployment rate reached a four-year high, signs that the pressure on business owners and consumers is likely to continue. Still, the decline in the job market has softened since the spring. The number of layoffs was less than the 75,000 that economists had expected, and the government said that businesses cut fewer jobs in June and May than previously reported. |
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