They say politics make strange bedfellows, and no where is that more obvious than Hillary Clinton making the statement that both she and John McCain bring a lifetime of experience to the election process...and Obama brings a speech.  I have lost what little regard I had left for Bill and Hillary Clinton....McCain was just endorsed by Bush. Bill Clinton says Hillary and McCain are good friends and would run a polite campaign should they both get their party's nomination...McCain got his...and now Hillary is determined to get hers, or so bloody Obama to ensure a McCain victory. If McCain wins, she can come back in four years, if Obama wins, she risks 8 years becore she can run.  

It doesn't surprise me that the mainstream media is turning on Obama....an Obmam presidency means  changing the way government is conducted, with the special interest and lobbyists out the door...the same special interests and lobbyists owned by the media.

They're all in bed together.

Wake up....the supreme court forced Bush down our throats...and not we risk the Democratic Party forcing Hillary down our throats, despite the fact Obama has more pledged delegates....aka Bush v Gore II but twisted, this time with the candidate with more pledged delegates losing..

That's democracy?

The last major presidential candidate from Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, was approached by a voter in the 1950s. "Governor, you have the vote of every thinking American," she said. "That's nice," Stevenson replied. "But I need a majority."

Politics, as Bill Clinton said Tuesday in South Carolina, is "a contact sport." And while Barack Obama is trying hard to shed his professorial and all-too-Stevensonian air, he's just not a good enough eye-gouger at the line of scrimmage, especially with two people teaming up against him.

Obama's best hope is that Democratic voters aren't as dumb as Hillary and Bill Clinton think they are. The outcome of the primaries depends on whether, amid their busy lives, voters can get a general fix on who is more often telling the truth about the barrage of charges and countercharges.

This is ironic, because the way Bill Clinton survived impeachment was by betting on the intelligence of the American public. Now he's betting against it.

In South Carolina, Hillary is airing a radio ad that goes back to a theme she pushed in the debate there Monday night: that Obama liked Republican ideas. As Obama pointed out in his response ad, this is "demonstrably false," as referees from ABC News to the Washington Post to factcheck.org have established. (The Obama response ad ends with a new tag line that Hillary will "say anything and change nothing.")

The Republican story goes back to an interview Obama did with a Nevada newspaper in which he praised the way Ronald Reagan communicated with the public and changed "the trajectory of American politics." He added that, unfortunately, the Republicans had some fresher ideas than the Democrats in recent decades.

These are completely ordinary comments. In fact, as Obama pointed out in the Myrtle Beach debate, Hillary is considerably more effusive about Reagan in Tom Brokaw's new book, "Boom." Bill has also made many statements over the years that were much more complimentary toward Reagan. Nobody paying attention thinks either Obama or the Clintons likes Reagan's right-wing politics.

But instead of moving on to another line of attack with more grounding in what Bill Clinton called "indisputable facts," the Clinton campaign decided to bet that this Reagan horse could be flogged for more votes among less educated voters in South Carolina who might be inclined to believe Hillary's preposterous version.

Less educated? Yes, downscale voters are their target group. Obama is stronger among well-educated Democrats, according to polls. So the Clintons figure that maybe their base among less educated white Democrats might be receptive to an argument that assumes they're dumb. Less well-educated equals gullible in the face of bogus attack ads. That's the logic, and the Clintons are testing it in South Carolina before trying it in Super Tuesday states. They are also road-testing major distortions of Obama's positions on abortion, Social Security and the minimum wage.

I'm all for aggressive, even negative, campaigning, but I'm not so sure this patronizing approach will work for Hillary down the stretch. Let's take the battle in New Jersey, a delegate-rich state that votes on Feb. 5. Hillary will almost certainly win there, in her backyard, but the question is by how much. New Jersey delegates are awarded proportionally, which means that if Obama can come within five or ten points, he's ahead of the game in the national delegate hunt.

As the Reagan ad aired in South Carolina, Hillary was campaigning in New Jersey. That gave the Obama campaign an excuse to assemble a rapid response team to create a little backlash in the Garden State.

Cory Booker, the inspiring mayor of Newark, is especially popular with white liberals in the suburbs. Here's what he said about the Clinton ads, beyond calling them "outrageous" and "dishonest":

"We're trying to offer an alternative to the Republicans' fear and smear campaigns, and now we're being dragged down to their level by the Clintons."

I live in New Jersey and can attest that plenty of Democrats there will be responsive to Booker's argument, as well as that of New York-area newspapers blasting Hillary for the Reagan shot. Disgust with this kind of thing may help bring Obama closer than expected.

Bill Clinton rightly complained in the 1990s about the politics of personal destruction. In both 1992 and 1996 he managed to run general election campaigns against George Bush and Bob Dole that mostly stayed on the high road. Then, in 1998, he survived a withering assault by relying on the common sense of average people.

On the day his testimony about his sex life was being replayed on TV—arguably the most embarrassing day in the history of the presidency—I slipped into a reception for Clinton in New York.

He was amazingly serene. With enough time and information, the president told me, the American people figure out the truth. They aren't as dumb as [former House GOP strategist] Tom DeLay thinks, he suggested. "The people always get it right," Clinton said.

They did then, supporting Clinton against a witch hunt. But will they now?

Slang Editorial: The Irony of Hillary Clinton

Watching last nite's debate on CNN and The Billary show for the past couple of weeks got me to wondering...exactly who is Barak running against again? Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton or both?

Hillary can't have it both ways... on one hand she wants us to accect her as a strong independent viable candidate, a candidate of both experience and change...

On the other hand, she's running on Bill Clinton's record...we all know his experience, but what is hers? Being the wife of a Govenor and President? (The same as Laura Bush). Being a US Senator (the most visible and well connected US Senator yet unable to lead her party at stopping Bush in Iraq)...even with all the cards stacked in her favor, Hillary has been a mediocre politican at best.

The last thing American needs is 4-8 more years of political bickering...of dems vs reps...of us vs them. Hillary Clinton is one of the most polarizing figures in American politics...second only to Karl Rove...even Democrats are openly saying they won't vote for her, not to mention independents and republicans...both which are needed to bring this country together.

While all of that is more than enuff reason to pass on Hill, the main reason is simple: Is she her own woman or not? And if so, why doesn't she show it instead of using Bill Clinton to do her dirty work. Since when is 2 vs 1 a fair fight? When the 1 is an African American. I don't see the same zeal in their attacks of Edwards or any other candidate.

Is this what we can expect from a Billary presidency? Haven't we had enough of divide and conquor politics....of false statements and misleading interpretations... If Hillary wants to attack Obama, then attack him straight up, don't hide behind Bill...and as for Bill, take responsibility for his comments...Stop with the "I'm here, he's not" while running on his record
(conveniently overlooking that bogus welfare reform and NAFTA)

....and please, no more crying.

Finally, a former first lady, turned senator on the coattails of her husband is not exactly my definition of a female candidate making it on her own...another legacy (look at where the last legacy got us).

Is Hillary her own woman?

I guess that depends on what your definition of "is" is.

-b

"I'm outspoken, my language is broken into a slang,
but that's just a dialect that I select when I hang"
I GOT IT MADE - Special Ed

b 4 barak

The Billary Mistrel Show: BET Founder Sells Black America Out Again...

My issue isn't that Robert Johnson supports Hillary Clinton, he's free to support whomever he chooses, my beef is with how he stooped to using Karl Rove like tactics to attack Barak Obama's admission of past drug use in his book. I find it laughable that Mr. Jonhson has the audacity to comment on drug use when BET, the network he founded and profited from glorifies drug use, violence and the exploitation of women.

America needs to get real when it comes to drugs...the War of Drugs is a colossal failure....it doesn't and never addressed how drugs get into this country (the maja playaz), instead focusing on the little guy on the street corner...and second it doesn't attempt to deal with the "legal drug game" (doctor shopping...ie Rush Limbaugh) and addiction to prescription drugs.

Hillary is running on "experience", but what experience does she really bring to the table? Her healthcare plan failed...she hasn't led the Dems to success in stopping Bush on any issue, and while it's true that Barak Obama hasn't either, Hillary's been in Washington longer, she's a former First Lady and 'has more clout...and tends to go along to get along..

Obama didn't inject race into this issue, Hillary did with her comments about MLK...leaving the job of directly attacting Obama to Robert Johnson...more divide and conquer politics the democratic party is known for when it comes to dealing with African Americans...I live in St. Louis a city run by white democrats who use the same tactics. It's not Dems vs Reps here...its white democrats vs black democrats, with whites in control excluding black elected officials, backing big business at expense of the little people and conceding as little as possible to minorities. Worse than Republicans because at least they apply vaseline before they fuck us over.....this is why I support Obama over Hillary....because the Democratic Party, like American needs change.

And as for Robert Johnson, I am insulted that he would think I am "so stupid" as to condone his comments.

slang editorial: now what if native americans had an immigration policy?

i'm not going to go into my usual why the fuck are we celebrating the genocide of millions of native americans or what are black folks so thankful for when "thanksgiving" ultimately led to our passage in a fleet of of slave ships .. where was the cry for "immigration reform" back then....marinate on that while you stuff yourself today...and while I don't celebrate thanksgiving, i will be eatin' the hell outta my mom's dressing and sweet potato pie.

-b
"I'm outspoken, my language is broken into a slang, but that's just a dialect that i select when i hang"
Special Ed, I Got It Made

I really don't have time to go into great detail about my take on the Florida student who was tasered, but I did find this piece that pretty much sums it up... my only issue is that it doesn't tie in the race factor....and I'm sure you're asking what does race have to do with it....

Welcome to the Terrordome White America...when it was Rodney King many of you told us to slow tape down, not to believe our lying eyes, hell, even look at it when the moon was in an certain position....anything, but deal with the elementary fact of police brutality against a black man....

Don't get me wrong, I think they would have beat him if he were hispanic...the war on black and brown.

Surely he asked for it, somehow in your minds he had to ask for it...because it good ol American shit like that doesn't happen.

NOT!

Now I'ma quote Malcolm here "your chickens have come home to roost"...now it isn't Leroy Jackson, this time it's Timmy...and you're shocked and awed not only at the tasering incident, but the media's biased coverage. The power of the media against  the individual...it was all good when it was us, now it's you.

Welcome to the Terrordome White America...

Ok...enuff with the prelude...

..> ..>

The media and John Kerry's disgusting display By Bev Conover Online Journal Editor & Publisher http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2440.shtml Sep 20, 2007, 00:59

Email this article  Printer friendly page

Imagine you attend a town hall talk by a US senator. A question and answer session follows. You line up behind the other questioners. Before your turn comes, the session is suddenly declared over and the microphone is turned off.

That is what happened to University of Florida journalism student Andrew Meyer, 21, Monday -- Constitution Day, yet -- when he sought to put his questions to guest speaker Senator John Kerry.

Meyer verbally protested, which anyone would do. Kerry had the microphone turned back on. Meyer, holding up a copy of Greg Palast's book, Armed Madhouse, recommended the book to Kerry. Kerry said he had read it. Then when Meyer asked Kerry why he had not contested the stolen 2004 election, his microphone was turned off again to shouts of only one question per person. That was Meyer's first question. Meyer shouted back that Kerry had had two hours, so he surely was entitled to two minutes. Kerry agreed to answer his questions. With the microphone still turned off, Meyer asked Kerry why he had not sought George W. Bush's impeachment. That's when the campus police stormed him.

With Meyer protesting the cops' actions -- which now apparently constitutes "resisting arrest," worse since he was still holding the book over his head, "resisting arrest with violence" -- Meyer was wrestled to the floor and held down by six cops as he was Tased, then hauled off to the Alachua County jail where he spent the night.

What did John Kerry do while all this was happening within his plain sight? He stood there barely audibly saying, "That's all right, let me answer his question" and later, in a statement, denied he knew what was going on: "I believe I could have handled the situation without interruption, but I do not know what warnings or other exchanges transpired between the young man and the police prior to his barging to the front of the line and their intervention."

Whether Meyer barged "to the front of the line" is questionable. The first report of the incident did not have him "barging to the front of the line." And, even if he did, since the question and answer session was cut off before Meyer and any others got to ask their questions, so what if he demanded for himself, and possibly others, his constitutional right to be heard?

We're talking about the First Amendment right to free speech, not assaulting and Tasing a person because someone doesn't like what he is saying. Back in the days when reporters weren't all whores for their corporate masters and the powers that be, they were aggressive in questioning the politicians they were covering.

But free speech rights don't cut it with today's corporate media, in whose class we now have to put Air America's Rachel Maddow. Instead, it's questions about Meyer's background that has become the story.

To wit, Travis Reed of the Associated Press wrote that Meyer is a "university student with a history of taping his own practical jokes," as if that has any relation to the incident.

As if that weren't bad enough, Reed further wrote, as if to paint Meyer as a lunatic and a pervert, "Meyer has his own Web site and it contains several 'comedy' videos that he appears in. In one, he stands in a street with a sign that says 'Harry Dies' after the latest Harry Potter book was released. In another, he acts like a drunk while trying to pick up a woman in a bar.

"The site also has what is called a 'disorganized diatribe' attributed to Meyer that criticizes the Iraq war, the news media for not covering the conflict enough and the American public for paying too much attention to celebrity news."

Now it's the victim's motives and not the cops' brutality that is being questioned. Even the Times of London got in on that act. Wrote the Times, "Critics have suggested that the entire incident was a planned attempt to win attention for a student who has already posted dozens of videos of himself on his website http://www.andrewmeyer.com/."

Hey, he's a college student for crissakes! This is utter nonsense and beside the point.

Anything to misdirect the focus away from another violation of free speech rights and the vicious behavior of law enforcers (remember when they were called "peace officers?").

Rachel Maddow, on Tuesday night's Countdown on MSNBC, also showed her hand by questioning whether Meyer's behavior was a stunt to gain attention, while expressing her support for police and brushing off First Amendment rights.

The worst, though, was the Bush family's favorite newspaper, The Washington Post. In her article, Aiming to Agitate, Florida Student Got a Shock, Post writer Monica Hesse wrote, "This was not Meyer's first escapade as a provocateur, but it may be his most physically punishing. As a freshman his weekly columns for the Alligator, the campus newspaper, regularly prompted debate. 'He would take an idea such as a fundraiser for cancer research, and would bash the way the whole event would go down,' wrote Meyer's friend Brandon Crone in an e-mail, noting that some of Meyer's articles were rejected for publication because of their incendiary material.

Only halfway down the article did Hesse interview people who know Meyer and denied what he did was a publicity stunt.

Imagine if the civil rights movement were underway today. There would be no photos, film or videos of cops attacking protestors with clubs, dogs or fire hoses. No media outrage over three civil rights workers being brutally murdered in Mississippi or the bombing of churches and homes that killed innocent adults and children because they were black. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be dismissed as some kind of "conspiracy nut." There would be little coverage of the march on Selma or the Mall in Washington packed by those who came to hear King's "I have a dream" speech. Instead reporters would be asking, "What are they protesting about?"

Unlike the Vietnam War era, the only coverage of today's antiwar protests is negative. Rarely is anything shown of cops brutalizing protestors, who often are herded into "Free Speech Zones," and when it is covered, it's usually disruption caused by those clad in black government infiltrators the media call "anarchists." (Remember Seattle and Miami?) No peacenik in her right mind today would dream of sticking a flower in the barrel of an AK47 carried by a cop dressed as Darth Vader, without risking being shot.

Bush has decreed and the corporate media have abided by the decider-in-chief's edict that no body tubes containing dead soldiers being brought home be photographed. As for the 1.2 million Iraqis killed in Bush's war, the 4 million or more displaced or forced to flee their homeland and the countless thousands wounded or maimed, the Decider says, "Fuhgeddaboutem."

Protest and dissent is out. Hard questions are a no-no. People are harassed, patted down and even body searched at airports -- i.e., if they aren't among the thousands on the no-fly list without explanation or a way of getting off it. People are kicked off plains for speaking a foreign language. Backpacks are banned at public events. Spectators can't carry bottles of water into sporting events. People are disappearing, without recourse to lawyers or courts, into Bush's gulags on suspicion of being terrorists.

Music scholar Nalini Ghuman, a British citizen who has legally taught at Mills College in Oakland, Calif. for 10 years, had her visa torn up, passport defaced, her luggage and person searched by Customs officers, without explanation, upon returning from a trip to the UK on August 6, 2006. Then she was given the choice of boarding the next flight back to the UK or being locked up in a detention facility. To this day, the State Department has offered no explanation and, so far, has not responded to her application for a new visa. Ghuman is not alone in this treatment.

How much more of this are people going to take and still say America is a free society?

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

The industry still doesn't get that they need to focus on quality music instead of marketing gimmicks. I anticipate both coming with the same shit they're known for producing...50 Cent's "I got shot 9 times and survived" bullshit vs. Kanye's "I'm so different" when he's really a watered down version of Common & Mos Def, only marketed better...although I do give him props as a music producer. My predicition is that sales of both albums will be down significantly from their last releases and the industry will blame the internet, bootleging and downloading...one of the biggest myths labels use to explain the decrease in sales when every study shows that downloading has no effect on cd sales...the industy sold more cds ever in the history of music when downloading was at it's peak with Napser, google that. What's killing sales is the same garbage they keep putting out...50 Cent's days are numbered...his era is ending and I'm not sure how long Kanye will be able to coast on College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation school gimmicks considering he's had no "Bush hates black people" moment, hence no Time Magazine cover, although he is featured on the cover of Rolling Stone with 50 Cent, but then again Rolling Stone isn't what it used to be, so that really doesn't say much.

- b

"I'm outspoken, my language is broken into a slang, but that's just a dialect that I select when I hang" - Special Ed, "I Got It Made"

Still bumpin that Public Enemy, yo!

 

Anotha day in "Paradise"

..> ..>

The Pfc. LaVena Johnson Petition!!!!! Father Of G.I. Who Died Mysteriously In Iraq Speaks Out - Wants Investigation Reopened By: Logan Murphy   Via The Pfc. LaVena Johnson Petition: Dr. Johnson spoke last Friday at the Veterans for Peace speakout on sexual assault in the military outside the Robert A. Young Federal Building in downtown St. Louis. This was just one of many events and workshops comprising the 22nd annual national convention of VFP. More material relating to the convention will be posted here as soon as I can get to it. In the video embedded here, Dr. Johnson talks about learning of LaVena's death, his suspicions about how she died, and the family's attempts to get the Army to reopen its investigation. He is introduced by antiwar activist and retired Army colonel Ann Wright. Read more… Many of you have heard this….LaVena's family firmly believes that she was murdered, but the military is calling her death a suicide and refuses to reopen the case. Read LaVena's story and sign the petition here. Nicole covered this story back in March, but the family still hasn't gotten anywhere so I thought I'd give them more exposure. We know that George Bush and the military are still covering up the truth about the murder of Pat Tillman and lied about Jessica Lynch's story so why should we trust we're getting the truth about LaVena's death? Either way it's a lose - lose for the family whether she was murdered or not.   - Crooksandliars.com

Are Don Imus' remarks any worse than some rappers?
By Davey D

This week, I had planned a second column on hip-hop and the 2008 presidential election. But with the hoopla over the racially charged remarks by radio personality Don Imus, I just have to weigh in - especially after hearing him rationalize his transgression by noting popular rappers say things far worse than he ever has.

Some context: Imus was correct. A lot of hip-hop artists have said worse things. It was only last week that we saw Snoop Dogg being praised for criticizing conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly on a popular Netherlands TV talk show. What got lost amid the applause was Snoop's referring to his former female lawyer, Lauren Lake, who had appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor," as a "ho who was doing the bidding of her pimp" (meaning Snoop).

Don't jump to the conclusion that because Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson didn't lead a protest, people weren't outraged by Snoop's comment. I heard disdain expressed at two panel discussions, including last week's packed "Does Hip Hop Hate Women" tour at the University of California-Berkeley. Readers of this column know I have chronicled all sorts of activists, from Project Islamic Hope to the local Youth Media Council, that speak out against misogynist artists and those espousing hate.

But I haven't seen radio stars such as Sharpton and, especially, Imus giving air time to those demanding changes. More disturbing is that we've heard little about the Imus faux pas from the congressmen who frequently appear on his show. The silence of powerful people was deafening. Sen. John McCain even said he would still go on the Imus show.
Both Sharpton and Imus work for broadcasters that have long been criticized for lack of balance and a lack of willingness to engage their larger communities. Sharpton works for the black-owned Radio One, which reaches an estimated 70 percent of the country's African-American audience.

Before Sharpton's talk show was launched a year and a half ago, and before media critics such as Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report called into question unsavory practices by Radio One, Sharpton was nowhere to be found when his help was requested repeatedly by organizers. And now that he's employed by the conglomerate, he's doing very little to push for substantial change. We hear the same 10 or 12 misogyny-laden songs on Radio One as on the other radio chains.

With regard to CBS Radio, which employs Imus, I recall that two years ago WPGC, the network's urban-music station in Washington, D.C., came under fire from activists upset by its decision to introduce the Ying Yang Twins song "Wait (Till You See ... )," with its crude reference to male genitalia. They posted an open letter expressing outrage and questioning why white program director Jay Stevens would force-feed the song to the African-American community that supports the station. Getting little response from WPGC, they then mounted a letter-writing campaign to the corporate headquarters.

I expressed support for the campaign on my Web site, but the song was not dropped. The station refused to have a dialogue with the critics. I even received a call at home from the Ying Yang Twins' record label, giving me a hard time for my position.

A few months later when attending the BET Awards after-party, I was confronted by the music director of the Washington station, who chastised me for my involvement. Saying I was out of touch, he insisted WPGC was keeping it real. He showed no concern that people in his community were offended. He argued the song was popular and needed to be played. But he had no answer when I pointed to a substantial list of other songs and artists that were also popular but rarely got played on the station.

Imus, of course, has been suspended, not fired, for his remarks. Apparently, as Diddy used to say, it's still "all about the Benjamins," not the hurt and pain caused by unsavory lyrics, or racist remarks from an out-of-touch host, or the insensitivity of a media conglomerate.

Davey D's hip-hop column is published biweekly in Eye. Contact him at mrdaveyd@aol.com.