Colin Powell Criticizes Gate’s Actions

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was mildly critical Tuesday of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Obama.

Powell, interviewed by CNN's Larry King, criticized the way Gates dealt with Sgt. James Crowley, a white officer who responded to reports of a possible break-in by arresting the black professor at his home on a charge of disorderly conduct. The charge was soon dropped.

Gates "might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it," said Powell, one of the nation's most prominent African Americans.

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Addicted To Political Television

By: Lisa Powell

A few months ago, I was a happy work-from-home mom. Each day was filled with caring for my kids, tending to the hubby, doing case work with my clients and squeezing in a few minutes for myself. Little did I know that a nightmare was coming from a villain that I would have never expected…the STOCK MARKET! In early October, the Dow Jones industrial plummeted as much as 800 points. Before this fateful day, I had never paid attention to the numbers. All of a sudden my world changed. I had to try to get a handle on what was going on around me.

Now, each morning my television is programmed to come on at 6:45am to MSNBC so that I can view all of the events that occurred during my slumber. You ask “what could possibly have happened by this early time”? I have no idea, but I don’t want to be taken by surprise. Although I am just a simple woman from Louisville KY, the world has changed in such a way that I must know what is happening in China, Japan and every other location on the other side of the globe. Watching MSNBC is like having a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. After seeing what happened overseas, I can start my day. If stocks rallied in other places, I get my daughters up for school, get them dressed and make pancakes. If things are a bit “off”, they get a bowl of cereal. Sorry kiddos. As the day goes on, I watch the ups and downs of the stock market. I am good at multi-tasking, so I just have every television in the house tuned in as I tend to my daily duties. Something in my brain snapped a few weeks ago when I made the awful mistake of taking a nap shortly 4pm. When I went to sleep, the Dow Jones was down a mere 200 points. You know how they say that 40 years old is the new 20. Well, now a 200 point drop in the Dow is the new 100 point rally. I have adjusted to some level of disappointment, due to the resent explosion. On that horrific afternoon, I woke from my peaceful slumber and I tuned into my favorite channel. The Dow had dropped nearly 700 points for the day!!! The panic overtook me and I wondered what had happened. I called my sister in TX who watches the news channels almost as much as I do. We talked for over an hour about what this means for the world. I just had this incredible feeling that I was falling and did not know where I would land. The world as I knew it felt as though it were crumbling beneath me. So much seemed to be at steak. That day began my total obsession with political news. I wake to MSNBC, move to CNN, get a taste of FOX and listen to NPR in the car (the kids can no longer listen to their Radio Disney cd as we go to go to Chuck E. Cheeses). While I am doing things for my job, I can’t help myself… I have selected stocks on a constant stream. I go to bed with the peaceful voice of Keith Oberman lulling me off to a land where there are no numbers.

I had the privilege of having breakfast ( that turned into lunch and almost dinner) with my old college buddy Dr. Boyce Watkins today. Since he is a doctor, I thought that I would tell him about the psychological damage that is being caused by my obsession with political television news. Hey, he is a financial wizard, business professor, and doctor (to name only a few titles), so I thought that I would give him a chance at being a psychiatrist. I began by telling all of my sundry symptoms and how it was affecting my life. I could no longer watch SpongeBob with my kids. It was quickly discovered that they simply do not appreciate being manipulated into watching a fun filled episode of “Hardball” no matter how funny I tell them that Chris Matthews can be in the evening. Due to my addiction, I sit in the kitchen at the island during meals with the TV on instead of being at the kitchen table with everyone else. You just never know when some BREAKING NEWS might come on. Most of the conversation that I have with my husband have been surrounded by the new names that Obama is being called, what Palin did today (or what she is wearing), whether McCain has suffered another “senior” moment (you know that the day that he said “I couldn’t agree with him more…” at a rally was funnier than some of the SNL shows) and if Joe Biden was going to take his jacket off again and exclaim to his opponents “where I come from, you tell it to a guy’s face…”. This stuff can be better than any comedy show, scarier than any horror movie and have more cliff hangers than the best drama.

Back to the worst of them all…the stock market. The roller coaster is truly more terrifying than any Six Flags ride I have ever been on. The one and only question that Dr. Watkins asked was “why do you watch it so much?” All good therapists ask questions to make you figure out the answers to the problems yourself. I was totally stumped. To tell the honest truth, I have no idea what all of those numbers really mean. I did some research on all of the information and I might was well have been reading a foreign language. I am a social worker by profession and can only understand things by feeling. The only way that I can describe what the mean to me, is that it a financial gauge to understand how people are feeling. Do you know what I mean? There will be Breaking News that the Big Three auto companies are having trouble and the number falter. An hour later, someone will report that there might be yet another 100 KABILLION dollar AIG bailout and the number move again. A short time after someone says that the outlook on the futures of a favorable stock is positive and we end the day rallying. Although the day ends wonderfully, we have to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again…well, unless it is a weekend. On those two days I am in a coma. There was a time in my life that seems to far away that I used to take a break and relieve some stress. Now I sit and wait for the other side of the world to flip the lever on the financial roller coast once again.

As we listen to the frequently bleak financial and political news, we are all terrified of so many different things. These fears most times involve money and numbers. We are terrified of losing our homes, our stocks, our jobs, our savings…our minds!! Since Dr. Watkins and I are “talkers”, we spent more time discussing my issues and he nearly missed his plane flight. It was therapeutic simply to get it all out and ponder an escape. With that said, I have come to the realization that someone might need to unplug me, like Neo from The Matrix. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel as though they have entered another world…as if the life you had just over a month ago was a dream? So, until Morpheus comes along to pull me from the shell that I lie in, I will continue to tune in. However, I do promise that my girls will get pancakes or waffles each morning for breakfast and I will eat at the dinner table with my family…I will just turn the television up really loud. Is there a 12 step program for this?

Black Politics: Barack Obama Showing Campaign Fatigue

BUTTE, MONT. -- He hasn't had a vacation for months. He sees his family little more than once a week. And now as the presumed Democratic nominee for president, he can't go anywhere without being trailed by a full crew of journalists.

Reaching his limit, Barack Obama wriggled free of the campaign's fetters on July 4. Caught in Montana on his daughter Malia's 10th birthday, he improvised a party.

At the Holiday Inn Express in Butte, a city known for its copper mines and bordellos of old, Obama and family ordered a cake. They loaded an iPod with Malia's favorite songs and danced and sang. Obama later came close to tears, recalling that Malia told him "it was the best birthday she'd ever had."

"I know it sounds corny, but last night was actually one of those times where being in a Holiday Inn in Butte without a lot of fanfare. . . . I don't know whether she was just telling us what we wanted to hear, but I can tell you from my perspective it was one of the best times I've had in a long time," Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane. Then he quickly turned and back to his seat.

Being Barack Obama would seem an ego-enlarging thrill, with ecstatic crowds at every stop and -- if the polls are right -- a better than 50-50 shot at becoming president.

Watching him on the trail in recent days, though, it often appears as if the unrelenting attention and prolonged campaigning are getting wearisome. He told a customer at an Indiana diner two months ago that he had lost 7 or 8 pounds. He said he was learning to get by on four-to-five hours' sleep.

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barack obama,2008 presidential election,black politics,african american politics

An Unnecessary Danger -Senator Obama's Planned Visit To Iraq

Charlie Black’s Bhutto’s Assassination Remarks makes Senator Obama’s Future Planned Trip To IRAQ An Unneccassary Danger: According to Charlie Black, McCain's chief strategist, “The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event.” "But his (McCain’s) knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us."

Clarlie Black is the Chairman of BKSH which is a lobbying subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller. Charlie Black and Mark Penn, former chief strategist for Hillary Clinton are business partners. Penn is the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, which is one of the largest public relations firms in the world. One of the noted client of Burson-Marsteller is Blackwater. In 2007, Blackwater was accused of killing several Iraqi civilians. Blackwater hired BKSH to help them with their image after the Iraqi civilians' claims.

Blackwater USA is one of three United States-based private security firms contracted by the State Department to provide security for diplomats and other senior civilians in Iraq. According to the New York Times, Blackwater guards the most prominent American diplomats. The NY Times also reported that Blackwater has received government contract worth more than 1 billion dollars since 2002.

The Republicans have mounted an effort to weaken Obama on his signature issue the Iraq War. Part of their effort includes a demand that he goes to Iraq to "talk" to the the commanders on the ground before the November election. Obama has agreed to this self serving and dangerous demand of John McCain and his supporters.

Obama should remember thathis nation suffered great misery and pain with the political assassination of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. In fact we will never know who was responsible for the deaths of John Kennedy, King, Robert Kennedy, Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto 1953 - 2007, and Patrick Daniel Tillman (November 6, 1976- April 23. 2004).

According to Wikipedia “The controversy surrounding the full details of Tillman’s death has sparked many investigations. CNN in a March 5, 2006, article on CNN.com stated, “The U.S. Army will launch a criminal investigation to determine whether former NFL player Cpl. Pat Tillman's 2004 death from friendly fire in Afghanistan was negligent homicide, CNN learned on Saturday. The Pentagon's inspector general directed the Army Criminal Investigative Division to conduct the probe, sources said. "

Initial reports after his death said Tillman, 27, was shot and killed by Taliban forces during an ambush on April 22, 2004. An investigation later found that fellow soldiers shot Tillman, thinking he was part of an enemy force firing at them. Tillman's family demanded to know why his uniform and body armour were burned a day after he was killed and why they were not immediately told he might have been killed by fellow soldiers.” Who killed Corporal Patrick Tillman and why was he killed? Did the Army Rangers protect him in Afghanistan?

Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto assassination occurred on December 27, 2007, as she was campaigning ahead of the January 8, 2008, scheduled elections. President Pervez Musharraf's government was responsible for Bhutto's safety and security. According to one of Robert Novak's columns, "the assassination of Benazir Bhutto followed two months of urgent pleas to the State Department by her representatives for better protection. The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would not let anything happen to her."

On December 28, 2007, the Washington Post in an article titled “US Brokered Bhutto’s Return to Pakistan.” The article stated in part: “As part of the deal, Bhutto's party agreed not to protest against Musharraf's reelection in September to his third term. In return, Musharraf agreed to lift the corruption charges against Bhutto. But Bhutto sought one particular guarantee -- that Washington would ensure Musharraf followed through on free and fair elections producing a civilian government. Rice, who became engaged in the final stages of brokering a deal, called Bhutto in Dubai and pledged that Washington would see the process through, according to Siegel. A week later, on Oct. 18, Bhutto returned. Ten weeks later, she was dead.

America can’t afford to lose Senator Obama. Many Americans especially Black Americans and young voters need the hope and excitement that Obama brings to the political process. If he was killed in an “accident” in Iraq or worst the Bush Administration would be in charge or investigating his death. Based on the results of Tillman investigation and 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity investigation how successful would an investigation of an “accident” and/or an “assassination” of our Democratic nominee be in Iraq?

Do you think that Senator Obama will be safe with Black’s client “Blackwater USA” or for that matter any security firm in Iraq responsible for his protection? How many billion of dollars have Blackwater made since 2002? How much “protection” would you provide to someone who was going to end your billion(s) dollar contract with the Republicaians?

After Obama is in the White House he can travel to Iraq. If anything happens to him as a sitting President Obama’s Justice Department would be in charge of investigating and bringing those responsible to justice. OBAMA the only way you can lose this election is if you are DEAD or IF your name is not on the ballot. The Republicans know this fact. The Karl Rove playbook must not work this time. If and when McCain or his mouth pieces ask Obama how many days have passed since his 2006 visit to Iraq a good response from Obama would be ask how many days has it been since George declared that we would get Bin Laden Dead or Alive? How many days has it been since Bush uttered “Bring It On”?

Please Senator Obama remember that this election is not about you it is about the American people. We have waited forty years since Dr. King’s death for your appearance on the political scene and we can’t afford to wait another forty years for the movement that is Barack Obama to occur again in this nation history.

Vera Richardson is the author of “A Case of Racial Discrimination and Retaliation Real or Imagined.” http://books.google.com/books?id=sx1cLRaobBQC

Republican Senator: Shoot-On-Sight...Obama

On the June 18, 2008 edition of the Don Wade & Roma Morning Show, Rep. Mark Kirk, of Illinois's 10th congressional district, spoke of an hypothetical assassination attempt on Sen. Barack Obama. For those of us who can recall, this would not be the first time a Conservative has spoken of Barack Obama in such terms. Late last month, FOX News Contributor, Liz Trotta, referred to the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton's reference to RFK's assassination, saying; "Some are reading it as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama," and when corrected by the interviewer, Bill Hemmer, she said, "Obama. Well...both if we could!"