Point Blank is a Black Commentary and Opinion by Chris Stevenson

A black man just won a caucus in Iowa. Not the Motown Caucus, not the Harlem Caucus, not the Lower Ninth Ward Caucus, I’m talking The Iowa Caucus! Yeah right. Next you’ll be telling me that Oprah Winfrey is endorsing him, next you’ll be telling me Hillary came in 3rd. Oddly enough Clinton is supposed to be a done deal by now and almost a year after she formed that exploratory committee (1/20/07) it seems that she may be done for. Confiscating Senator Barack Obama’s grade school essays and having former NBA star and current mega-business mogul Magic Johnson wasn’t enough to tip the scales for her in what could be the most pivotal part of the campaign season. If she doesn’t win Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, should she pack it in?...more

12.26.07 Chris Stevenson - In a strange piece of irony, 2 days after an announcement that the sentencing for Jose Padilla was postponed due to a death in Judge Marcia Cooke’s family, the Central Intelligence Agency revealed that it destroyed videotapes of two terror suspects being “interrogated.” This may come as a surprise to some, but it’s not the first time the CIA has come clean on something years after the fact. From the outset it would seem that if all of us were just as honest towards those close to us as the CIA is towards the taxpaying citizens, the world might be a better place, right? Wrong.

According to the Associated Press’ Pamela Hess, we aren’t really even supposed to know this. CIA Director Michael Hayden only released this as a handwritten memo to CIA employees and it was leaked to the AP soon afterward. The agency claims to have filmed the “questioning” of only 2 terror suspects in ’02, watch-dogged itself in ’03, and destroyed the tapes in ’05 out of fear of disclosing the identities of agency interrogators to the public. “The tapes posed a serious security risk. Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who have served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers.”...more

12.26.07 Chris Stevenson - As many of you have heard, the steroid investigation results in Major League Baseball has just been released to the public and a few unexpected names have come up, but not nearly enough to make me lose my faith or love for the game. I have to admit, I didn’t see the Roger Clemons allegation coming-and understand these are still not legally conclusive-I just lumped his longevity as being the same as Satchel Paige and Nolan Ryan. Sad but true, news of the “Rocket’s” steroid use will not be the countermeasure it should be that takes some heated attention away from that of the hated Barry Bonds. Expect the outrage toward Clemons to be conspicuous by its silence. This is not to be confused with the original George Mitchell Report; something about some violence between the Israelis and Palestinians back in 2000 (yawn), no this is heavy-duty stuff right here...more

9.19.07 Chris Stevenson - Don’t think that just because there’s not another Bush presently running for office that there won’t be anymore black voter purges. It appears to that quite a few of you still don’t actually believe this happened, after all, the mainstream media hasn’t focused on this. Perhaps in your mind it’s just one of those radical black conspiracy theories, but past documents and recent developments show that if you think this can’t happen with the Primary ’08 winner among the current crop of democratic candidates, then you are either being obstinate or ingenuous...read more

9.19.07 A lot of black columnists and talk radio hosts have analyzed, scrutinized, and prophesied about Senator Barack Obama. Few of them really understand him and they get paid to do nothing else but understand the brother. Ghetto-type resentments and hatin’ kicks in and spills saliva and coffee over their journalism degrees at the mere mention of the name. I guess you can’t fight Father Nature-whom is an absentee father hanging out on Genesee Street.

I’m not claiming I was with him on this from day one; hell I started out intending to support Hillary. But as time went on, Obama seemed to grow from novice to apprentice to journeyman but fortunately never a contractor (like Hillary). An apprentice can be dazzling and impressive outwardly, but part of what makes an apprentice transform into a journeyman is his being open to learn. read more

BACKWOODS COURT RULING OVERTURNED

9.19.07 Someone in LA finally got it right. Mychal Bell’s conviction has been overturned by an appeals court according to a 9/14 release by the Associated Press. The original backwoods-style ruling in Jena Louisiana came within days of sentencing before outside courts attacked with a wave of common sense (apparently lacking in that town). The appellate court just had a couple of problems with the initial charges of 5 of the 6; lets see “Attempted Second-Degree Murder and Conspiracy to Commit Second-Degree Murder” just over some teenagers just getting into a fistfight. That’s all hmmm, other than that everything else is fine. The brainchild of those charges is a District Attorney named Reed Walters, who really really needs to admit himself into the Walter Reed Psychiatric wing (Ward 54 Walters, Ward 54). read more

Vick’s Dawgz (bipeds and otherwise)

8.10.07 - Don’t tell me. You were expecting to see footage of one of those pitt bulls driving Michael Vick down I-95 in a white SUV weren’t you? Truth be told, those dogs don’t have driver’s licenses (Some may have learner’s permits). Somewhere in between the extremities of white-outrage and fanaticism and pro-black protectionism is the truth regarding whether or not NFL quarterback Michael Dwayne Vick had anything to do with the reported Pitt bull fighting ring that seems to have been a regular event in a house he owned in Virginia. Unfortunately we aren’t really going to know anything until the trial, and that’s a good thing...read more.

Testigos de Jehov`a or Testicles of Jehovah?
Why men of faith are preying on children who pray.

It stands to reason that some religions have loose ends to tie up or they will eventually become their own apocalypse. Be judgmental all you want to, just bring your own skeletons.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society-as quietly as they could-just paid out their largest suit settlement ever. Of course this is the headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witness faith. The JWs are not accustomed to doing this. Historically they are heaping hot coals on others religions for their wicked ways. Over the past few years a stark revelation has been unfolding about the various elders within some of their congregations and an even more disturbing truth about what they call their Governing Body. Cynthia Williams of Ch-4 News in West Nashville, TN reported that settlements were reached in more than a dozen (16) cases. “Settlements with a gag order attached?” Actually the award is going to 16 victims involving 9 cases, but you get the idea...read the rest of the story

Bush’s Burger King Bill!

I now understand why President Bush is a failed oil baron. The man simply refuses to see the handwriting on the wall. You see stocks falling, Bush sees a windfall. Right now the war on Iraq is a bear market. A New York Times/CBS News poll says Americans view the war in Iraq more negatively than at any time since the invasion more than 4 years ago. It is under this scrutiny that Congress and Senate voted to pass Bush’s War Funds Bill, others however see nothing but bull in this measure...more

When Sly had Stones:
New CD box set recalls a band that ushered in the era of Head Music

Back when music was music, when boy bands were called singing groups (and they really knew how to sing) and bands were a group of people who actually knew how to play an instrument and songwriters were people who sat down and thought up their own lyrics and musical arrangements, there was a young black man of great talent who was a disc jockey and then a producer out of San Francisco named Sylvester Stewart. This individual actually started what would later on become known as the “San Francisco Sound.” Today young white adults point to Seattle as the beginning of rock music as they know it and black young adults point to the deep south (or dirty south) as the forerunner of rap music. Few of them knew that the first thing Seattle had going was Jimi Hendrix.How many black youth can point to New York as the birthplace of rap through such luminaries as the Last Poets back in '68, or hip-hop a few years later in the Bronx?...more

Would a Posada Trial be more relevant than Padilla’s Trial?
Why Bush Protects one and Prosecutes the other.

trial

Many of you are no-doubt aware of the current trial of Jose Padilla the American born Hispanic accused of terrorist activity in connection with al Qaeda. The simple fact of the matter is after three and a half years no charge has been filed until recently and dirt and bombs still have yet to be found on Padilla. On the other hand it is very evident that Padilla underwent lengthy torture while under US detention. Opening arguments began in Miami on Monday the 17th. Christian Science Monitor reporter Warren Richey writes that the absurd behavior of the Bush administration regarding Padilla extend well beyond his detention facilities, members of the media are not allowed to ask questions to defense lawyers or prosecutors at the trial or even in the lobby outside. Violating this rule means being asked to leave...more.

Clinton Money All Around!
Hillary summons Bill on the campaign trail to battle their old fundraisers; Obama’s fundraisers. But is it too late for her?

ObamaClinton

It’s becoming clear to me now that Senator Barack Obama wasn’t really chosen by White America, otherwise-as previously I stated-he wouldn’t need Secret Service protection. He wasn’t chosen by Black America either, the last two presidential elections show Black America unable to make sure all their votes are counted before they can be ready to select any candidate. Obama you see, chose himself. The last time whites in IL chose a black candidate was Alan Keyes. Obama was known to IL blacks, but they got amnesia the moment the rest of the country asked them who he was. Now it’s Senator Clinton’s time to do some choosing and she’s pulled out the big gun. Bill. This race is just warming up but her dispatch of Bill is her best decision in weeks especially with him trailing by only a point in the recent USA Today poll 30-29% and the spector of Gore entering the race...more

Mumia’s Electric Chair is a Well-Oiled Machine:
Here’s hoping Abu-Jamal gets new trial so the whole story can finally be revealed.

It may be that the rush to deny Mumia Abu-Jamal a retrial and see him die in a gas chamber or by injection is such a well-oiled machine, that even proof or evidence itself won’t slow down its campaign. This is very distressing in view of the still ongoing thug-mentality of much of Philadelphia’s police. Consider the recent videotaped incident of 7 Philly officers beating down a handcuffed black man, Kyle Byrd. Business as usual in the City of Brotherly Love...more

War of the Words!
What White America really don’t want rappers to say, What tough acting rappers are afraid to say.

05.08.07 What was the most important thing accomplished in the almost 2-decade success of the “gangsta” rap industry? The record industry was able to take political dialogue away from rap artist and therefore take it away from the people and replace it by putting a divisive, then-illiterate, ghetto-thinking bully in charge of the most infamous rap record label there was; Death Row Records. The man in question, Marion “Suge” Knight seemed to leave a trail of blood or bad blood every time he made a public appearance. Whether or not he realized that’s what the suits wanted him for is not known, he simply took the black-on-black animosity of the ghetto from the street corners and public housing developments of the inner cities and put its hostile hate talk in the studio.

CLARENCE THE LARYNX:
Supreme Court Justice vocal cords cut by space aliens, will be re-attached in time for affirmative action vote.

05.08.07 Somebody just wrote a book about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. No it’s not 400 blank pages, but it’s co-written by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher and much can be said about the timing of its release, only Thomas (rumored to be black) won’t say anything. In fact he hasn’t uttered a word on his job for months now. Highly unlikely behavior from a brotha, guy shows up on time every day, doesn’t say s—t. What’s wrong with this him?

Imus Backlash!
04.30.07 Jason Whitlock and white radio grunts have nothing but hate for Rutgers b-ball women and the legions of blacks who defended them.

04.30.07 Somebody’s gotta be there when it gets ugly, somebody’s gotta be there when it gets bloody, somebody’s gotta get their hands dirty, Yo it’s a f----d-up job but somebody’s gotta do it. Somebody’s gotta come up with the plan and be there when the s—t hits the fan. I hope ya’ll out there understand, look man it’s a f----d-up job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

04.24.07

No sooner than I just got finished telling you about some of Bush’s neocons, that news of the departure of one of them is already on record. Matthew John Dowd was a former democrat who defected due to disappointment over Bill Clinton. At some point this incredibly naïve man changed parties and joined the Bush Administration and in ’04 he became W’s chief campaign strategist. Today he is airing his disappointment in Bush’s leadership and that his faith in him was “misplaced.” Make no mistake about it Dowd is considered just as important an adviser as Karl Rove in getting Bush to the White House.

Neo-Condi and the Neocons.
04.24.07 Another word was or will be added to the dictionary, neocon or neo-(meaning new) conservatives (favoring preservation of the existing order) are generally known to be former liberals turned conservative due to views on Israel and/or the former Soviet Union. Former defense undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz is best-known among them today, but author Davis Horowitz may be the first official neocon and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is the best known of them.

Padilla
04.24.07 As of 4/16/07 Rumsfeld vs. Padilla became a reality in a Miami federal courtroom. I anticipated this trial for years and the jury selection phase already began.

PRAISE THE LORD & PASS THE W2 FORM: New book takes Black Church & its Members to the Woodshed, with the rod of reformation, resolution, & revolution.

Maybe Morgan Freeman prefers a Miss Daisy Month: Have Blacks become ashamed of Black History Month, or are some making us feel guilty because there is no month specifically named 'White History Month?

02.16.06 "...for they say that the mind has a strong drive to correct and re-correct itself over a period of time, if I can touch some substantial original historical base and they advised us that the best way to deal with the phenomenon is to shave off the brute's mental history and create a multiplicity of phenomena of illusions so that each illusion will twirl in its own orbit." Willie Lynch-How to make a Slave. Once again Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman is on his ivory soapbox debunking a Black cause. He seems to have generated some debate on the topic of Black History Month, I don't know about you, but I think Freeman's roles of playing the President, and playing God respectively, has gone to his head.

Funny how I don't recall him coming out of his mouth stupid like that back when he was a struggling actor, before he managed to get on Hollywood's A-list, back in the '60's when he was in an off-Broadway play called "the Niggerlover," or when he played the role of Malcolm X in an independent film (Malcolm X Death of a Prophet) directed by Woodie King Jr., Years before the Spike Lee/Denzil Washington epic drama. No he wasn't talking that conservative crap then, he just ate his macaroni and cheese and cornbread and kept his mouth shut. But ever since his Oscar nominated role as the obedient car-driving man-servant in that piece of Blaxploitation garbage otherwise known as "Driving Miss Daisy,"you can't pay the guy to shut up...more

Drowning in Hemoglobin: Can New blood Article narrow gap between religious doctrine and doctors.

02.06.06 "We've had long and distastasteful contact with many cults-Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and others. They hold wildly different beliefs, but all seem to share several common characteristics...

1-Love bombing, bombard him/her with love
2-Separation from family, get target to sever connection to their families... target must be made to believe family is evil
3-Brainwashing, loss of critical thinking
4-Exploitation."
The God Squad-Monsignor Tom Hartman & Rabbi Marc Gellman

In this era of purging religion and references to God and prayer from the classrooms, government buildings, and even that most famous holiday, Christmas, questions are now surfacing as to just how far some faiths have gone in order to establish and maintain control over their followers. Many churches have enjoyed a judicial free pass over the decades due to the First Amendment Clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Well, in hindsight, perhaps Congress should have made a law, but it errantly viewed the church to be under the control of someone higher than man, and in so doing, allowed religion to be essentially controlled by select groups of men. The world in general has too much potential to be hindered by religion, how much more-so a civilized society?...more

Anti-Prison Abuse Bill Passes:
(but don't think Bush doesn't have more Tasers on the fire)

01.05.06 President Bush was on the losing end of an issue that was near and dear to he and Dick Cheney's heart, torturing prisoners. But while he tends to more irons he has in the fire (namely granting those pesky democratic Senators a 6-month extension of the Patriot Act, putting more right-wing extremists in government, what will come of the Valerie Plame investigation, and how far into his administration will it probe, grudgingly weighing an Iraqi troop pullout, and his illegal NSA wiretap of American citizens), questions linger as to whether this setback is an outward manifestation of his plummeting approval ratings. And to think a year ago, all Bush had to worry about was forged military documents, same-sex marriage, and Janet Jackson's boob. Those were the good old days when he pretty much had the whole world rubed. Things have changed...more

Hating Donavan McNabb: Venom from Non-Violence group rep and Sports announcers Very Disturbing.

(...you say that's the NAACP right, not the NCAA...?...ok, NAACP... right, not the AARP?... huh? What's the guy's name, Maxwell Worthington Stuffinhoufer or something?...oh, it's Jerry Whyatt Mondesire, look I was just asking, don't get mad... ok you're sure he's the head of the NAACP... not the NRA?)

01.05.06 Ladies and gentlemen, as you may know, the leader of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP wrote an essay criticizing Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb in a 12/4 column in a newspaper he owns, the Philadelphia Sunday Sun. The Sun is one of several Black papers in what is one of the most racially divided cities in the nation. The immediate question on my mind is, what is the leader of a local civil rights group doing critcizing an NFL quarterback, much less one who is Black. I prefer my NAACP leaders to be out chasing abusive cops, the occassional cross-burner, and church bombers. It's not that I oppose leaders of these groups keeping us abreast of current events, or their political opinions, Marc H. Morial, the Urban League President, pens a pretty good column, but this Mondesire guy goes too far...more

Two Indictments against Two World Nations: How Testimony from Katrina Victims suspiciously resembles Testimony from Saddam's torture victims.

12.05.05 - Before I was rudely interrupted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I wrote an essay pushing for a boycott against Saudi Arabian owned petro companies that some papers may have printed ("Fight Bush's Friends: Boycott Saudi-imported oil"). Just prior to the storms, if you remember back in August, fuel prices went up to $2.61 per gallon (up from a previous week cost of $2.55 per gallon). The pre-Katrina price-hikes was already igniting anger among consumers, and websites were doing research as to what companies were primarily to blame for this. Around this time some began running a report called "A Crude Awakening (CA)," which warned against spending fuel dollars on the same people trying to blow us up, as well as gave a list as to which particular fuel stations to drive past...more

Military/Monetary:
Ousting the Gruesome Twosome is the Key to a Pullout.
The military, the monetary, they get together whenever they think it's necessary, they are turning our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet into a cemetery...
The military, the monetary, they use the media as an intermediary...
they tried to make SoDamn Insane into a worthy adversary...
they are determined to keep the citizens secondary, they make so many decisions they are arbitrary...
Peace is not the absence of war, it's the absence of rumors of war, and threats of war and corporations of war.
Gil Scott-Heron/Work For Peace-1994

12.05.05 - 403 to 3, oh well, it was a good idea at the time. A couple weeks back Congressman John Murtha-D (PA) called for an immediate pullout of American soldiers in Iraq. This resulted in what AOL News called "a vote hastily arranged by the GOP that democrats vociferously denounced as politically motivated." The vote took place on the Friday previous to the Thanksgiving break. The Dems lost 403-3. That sounds like some of the election results we have in Buffalo. It doesn't really matter how quickly the vote was arranged, most people know what they want. Most republicans aren't like the rest of us, they dream of sticking it to people, confrontation, and warfare. Currently republicans control the House and Senate, and anytime you got a republican in the Oval Office, tons of people are bound to die, tons of people stand to lose work, and less than a handful of rich people stand to become richer...more

A Notice to Black Drug Dealers, "Gangstas," and "Thugs": The Street Thing Won't Last Forever the way you hope it will.

"Finally today, convoys of troops and aid started to arrive along the Gulf Coast. Five days after the hurricane hit. Kind of makes you miss the innocent days when Bush only sat on his ass for 7 minutes." Bill Maher

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And of the people in the area here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Barbara Bush

November 15, 2002 - A few things to ponder long after the waters from Katrina & Rita have cleared. It's not just that President Bush doesn't care about Blacks, it's that Katrina proved he's really trying to convince us he doesn't care about Blacks, beyond any shadow of a doubt. He could try harder I suppose, but unlike many, I don't need that much convincing. If the Governor of Louisiana declares a State of Emergency on 8/26, and Katrina is upgraded from a Category 3 hurricane, to a Category 5 over the next two days, and Bush, Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Secretary, were given prior warning of levee failure by the National Hurricane Center on the 28th, and our hero is eating birthday cake with Senator John McCain on the 29th, I get the message...more

November 15, 2005 - There are now millions of Black boys wearing corn-rows, millions smoking blunts, drinking '40's and wearing pants below their waist. Almost all of them consider themselves in some way or another, to be rebels. My question is, at this point, where is the rebellion? If millions are doing it, that's no longer rebellion, that's status quo, that's mainstream. These young brothers are now a part of the system in more ways than one whether they know it or not. If you are one of these youth, or a parent or teacher whom is dealing with them, here are ten easy ways to get you/them back on the hard rails of rebellion.

10-Part of the rap industry has helped brainwash the minds of young Black males into thinking that his enemy is another Black man or woman. Songs about feuding cliques, and "dissin' records" have been in for a while now. Refusing to purchase Cd's by these artists and buy into their philosophy will make you a true rebel...more

Bushes, Browns, Rothschilds and Russells. New World Oder, something smells Brown.

Give me control of the economics of a country; and I care not who makes her laws.

The basic philosophy behind a one world, or new world order comes from the teachings of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. As I made reference to in part one, Germany was becoming exposed to an array of new ideas during the 19th Century. Hegel was a professor at the University of Berlin from 1817-1831. He pushed for the idea of a world based on "reason," not a reason based on an equal interchange of ideas from any citizens or groups under that particular government. It was "reason" based on an obedience to the state, and it was God who was said to rule the state...more

Bushes, Browns, Rothchilds and Russells. The Empire strikes first.

What is about to be presented to you is a true story of phantasmagoria that will expose ties that you'll not soon forget. I have come to find that in order to understand the Bush family, you must come to understand several other families of the era, beginning with the few I have mentioned already. Imagine an organization that meets every week on Thursdays and Sundays in a building called a hall, that has no windows, where members learn "the state is absolute and individuals are granted their freedoms based on their obedience to the state-a New World Order." A global or New, or One World Order is not new.

Back in 1917 Prescott Sheldon Bush would join such an organization while a student at Yale, in 1931 Prescott and George Walker (the original GW, would become George's namesake through marriage) hosted the Third International Congress of Eugenics. Prescott was described by journalist David Malmo-Levine as an "active White Supremacist." Something to remember since he is the president's grandfather. Ties to racist groups are no mystery once you find that Prescott's father Samuel Prescott Bush headed a labor union that was infamous for it's support of fascist organizations. It was his National Manufactures Association that created the John Birch Society. Soon thereafter the Bushes and another prominent family would become prime players in secret societies and the international drug trade...more

Sister Parks feud with White bus driver was final straw on a bloody year for southern Blacks.

Nov. - The most maligned persona in Civil Rights folklore finally met with her ancestors on 10/24/05 after being blessed with a long earthly life. Yet over the years, Rosa Parks' status has been relegated to the back of the double-decker Civil Rights/Black Liberation bus by the historical hounds of revisionism and trivia. Hollywood has taken it's potshots at her, American households don't really know her, all of this was for the purpose of implying that she wasn't really thinking about anyone but herself. Just a typical trifling sassy Black woman devoid of collective Black causes-like many of today's Black females. But the Montgomery AL seamstress was already a secretary in the NAACP, and in 1955 it's Mississippi membership dropped rapidly from 4,639 to 1,716 due to intimidation led by a southern segregationist organization known as the Citizens Council and a southern spy agency; the Sovereignty Commission...more

Poor Whites can only solve their problems, by resisting the temptation to verbally and physically assault Blacks, and identify their true Enemy.

"Just a quick observation, when people don't want to play the blame game, they're to blame."

Nov. - Did you hear that? That sound. Like a ripping sound, a tear, something tearing into the very fabric of humanity. Man has finally found a way to act out his his petty hatreds even in the midst of tragedy that was known to unify people of all races. Whereas at one time events like Hurricane Katrina would bring people immediately together, a way was found to keep people under siege just through the denial of aid for several days, long enough for negative behaviors to manifest themselves, and desperate and thuggish young Blacks reverted to the same criminal behaviors they had before Katrina, only at a faster pace...more

Beneath all the hype regarding the Rolling Stones' latest album "A Bigger Bang," is the new CD by a group that sold as many albums during the '70's as the Eagles, Aerosmith, Marvin, fellow Chicagoans Chicago, and the Stones. I'm talking about Earth Wind and Fire AKA "the Baddest Band on the Planet."...more

Four people executed and one little girl wounded recently in Buffalo by two men, another man and his girlfriend are apprehended in the midwest after a long search, after he beats to death her daughter (Erica Michelle Marie Green AKA Precious Doe), and later finds it in himself to dismember her head and bury it. A single mother (Livvette Moore) described as a "homebody" goes out for the first time in years to a birthday party held at a club in Toronto and is caught in the middle of a shoot-out, and dies. A young father in Rochester NY has just been sentenced to 20 years to life because one day he wanted to show off his newborn son to his family and friends, so he goes to the mother's home to pick the infant up and the baby's mother wants to wait a few weeks (which of course is understandable to even the average Orangutan). Homeboy becomes angry at this refusal, a heated exchange follows, after which he grabs his newborn son and slams him against the wall. Perhaps I'm going! out on a limb with this question, but what in the hell is wrong with these boys?...more

Admitting failed intelligence regarding 9/11 and the weapons of mass destruction are the least of our worries when it comes to the Bush administration. If you recall, W refused to apologize for false information that led to the Iraqi invasion periodically over the past several years. Just because a "presidential" commission made it official by criticizing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and calling the information "dead wrong" in the 700 page April Fools Day report doesn't mean he's had a change of heart...more

Cry over the Pope all you want to, my Pope was Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. It seems strange to me that he became the nation's best known attorney during the same trial that fellow defense F. Lee Bailey-the previous best known attorney-became vilified; the infamous "Trial of the Century," case no. BA097211, the People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson. But that's all part of the specter of emotions that the mere mention of anything relating to Simpson brings to many. To tell you the truth, it's not just the trial alone that bothered me, it's Simpson's arrest that leaves me scratching my head, the obsession by the California judicial system to prosecute Simpson and only Simpson. There was no second suspect or even the possibility of one being considered, no sense of optional thinking by either the so-called experts within the legal investigators or the LAPD. Was OJ the real killer? If so, did he have help? Once again these avenues were never explored. Was OJ really innocent? Who knows...more

A simple yes would make this the shortest essay in the history of this editorial page, but why should I tell you what you already know without elaborating on the why? Given his recent behavior, it looks like the wagons are circling around whom is arguably the most heralded personality in the history of music; Michael Joseph Jackson, and he may not be able to moonwalk his way out of this one...more

Once in a while Alan Keyes' spaceship lands on earth. After one recent touchdown he received some startling news. While walking into his bedroom late one night, he wakes up his wife to tell her that he was a "Dollar Menu" guy, 'that's the way I roll,' he adds. Keyes wife has been miffed that he had been treating her pretty much the way he treats the rest of the country, by always giving her useless information. Speaking of roll, she figures this would be a good opportunity to break the news to him, 'Alan, our daughter's a lesbian...more

a peaceful nation, and then oil was discovered. During this period the west's post-colonial powers-the oil industry-began operating in the only way they knew how, dividing Africans. In this case dividing Arab-influenced Brown and Black Sudanese of the north against the indigenous Black Africans of the south. The Muslim Arab, and Black Sudanese have been split since British colonialist separated them no later than the 1950's. The result shows them north gaining economic advantages, while the south become alienated. Chaos naturally developed through a civil war, which took attention away from the prime culprit, the various western oil companies...more

I originally was going to write only about the recent appointment of Condoleeza Rice as Colin Powell's replacement as Secretary of State. Then it dawned on me, the dollar is plummeting quicker than Lewinsky's knee-pads, more suspect things are going on in the Oral Office than Clinton could ever dream of. The people who should worry most about Rice are all those Americans who admire her from afar, because were you to live in Iraq or Afghanistan, you and your kids would have to build a bomb shelter quick, real quick. I've written enough about Dr. Rice in the past, but some of you still don't quite get it...more

Some African Americans who own their own radio stations continue to not know to do with themselves. Many station formats border too much on extremes, there's either too much rap or too much religion and too little dialogue. First there was a purging of local news staffs, now some stations that have the right dialogue are under invasion, from the likes of Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, and Lizz Winstead...more

Reported by Lawrence Michael Ladutke, Ph.D.
Author of Freedom of Expression in El Salvador

11.22.04

Mr. Gilberto Soto was assassinated Friday evening, November 5, at 6:00 p.m., while visiting his mother in the city of Usulutan, El Salvador.

Mr. Soto received a call on his cell phone and had just stepped outside the doorway of his mother's home, searching for better reception, when he was approached by two men who shot and killed him at close range. He was shot in the upper back and on the lower side, near the kidney. It was this shot which severed his aorta, the major artery to the heart. He died immediately...more

"No WMD's in Iraq, but Saddam still wanted them," I don't commit adultery, but my wife's best friend has big boobs, I don't cheat on my taxes, but I renege in bid-wisk, all of this amount to one huge giant implication folks. Nothing! You either got 'em or you don't, and Iraq ain't got 'em. That's right Larry, if you can't see, feel, or touch the merchandise then you must don't have them. Wishing, thinking about, and fantasizing about them doesn’t count. The basic premise behind the 10/6 report on WMD’s in Iraq by Charles Duelfer is that it is unlikely that Saddam had actual stockpiles of these deadly weapons. The "extensive new evidence showing that Saddam did indeed pose a threat to the international community" on the other hand, is Bush and his supporters being unable and unwilling to say 'we were wrong.' Here's the problem, over one thousand American soldiers are actually dead. Saddam's loyal followers aren't wishing those troops away anymore than the election wished Bush away. The insurgents are winning...more

In May of '68 2000 American troops were killed in a war that the US would eventually lose. George W. Bush had just graduated from Yale and would sign a six-year commission with the Texas Air National Guard (TANG), and would begin a series of insubordinate behavior that would have earned you or me a court marshal, or a free trip to SE Asia. These are the only factors worth remembering in the rush to demonize interviewer Dan Rather over possibly forged documents aired weeks ago on "60 Minutes."...more

At the Root of Sudan's Dilemma
Is the Arabs' Hatred of the Africans' Dark Skin?

A new opinion poll says that 98% of Africans are proud of their continent. Sudanese author/activist Kola Boof recently disclosed to me that for the most part she agreed with this: "I think they are, but it's the young people and upper-class who are being influenced by outsiders.” Outsiders, hmmm. Could she be referring to the Arab ruling party? According to a report in the 7/14 Christian Science Monitor: "The Darfur pogrom is part of a historic continuum in which successive Arab governments have sought to entirely destroy Black Africans in this biracial nation" This seems to be the case whether or not the Black Africans are Muslim, or Christian, or still practice traditional ancestral African faiths. It makes no difference to the hateful Arab occupation...more

Number 8 on a list of "things you have to believe to be a republican" is "providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, providing health care to all Americans is socialism." Now this list basically pokes fun at all the best-known standard beliefs of the republican party, government is right now content to have/or use conservative politicians and talk-radio grunts to train you to dislike good detailed plans that are actually closer to the realm of achievement than most of us think, such as free national health care...more

Sexual misgivings, financial scandals, waning morale, and other disturbing behavior could spell doom for that Grand Old Party in '04.

Every ten or twenty years or so the major media coerces the public at large to lie about an undeserving politician who just died, that's why my commentary about the late president Ronald Reagan comes after all the hype immediately surrounding his death and funeral. Understand I was wise to Reagan's game from way back. If Richard Nixon had personality his name would be Ronald Reagan. Both just weren't equally corrupt, Reagan was worse. While Nixon due to his mother-of-all-scandals; Watergate, was forced to resign, or face impeachment, Reagan got away with his Contra-gate. Nixon was also unable to achieve what Reagan was able to achieve down the line, his greatest accomplishment in fact; effectively merging poor Whites with conservative values. Values tailor-made to cater to the rich. Nixon was at best only able to convert the old and the boorish geeks to conservatism; his personality was capable of drawing nothing more. Reagan was vibrant, witty, worldly-wise, humorous, and possessed a down-to-earth story-telling charisma that sucked in the young working-class White American, and even a few Blacks. That was the Reagan Revolution...more

My former editor and good friend Joan (who once ran a Black paper out of Upstate NY, and now resides in Alabama) is always emailing information to me, most of which I delete, some I retain, and fewer-still I use as a subject matter for my columns. This one she pulled from the CounterPunch.org website involved some insight on details of a prescription drug scandal that most of us suspect, but few of us know any particular details on. Any movement to bring about Universal Health Care begins with reforming the various prescription drug programs that are currently terrorizing elderly and sick Americans...more

The IL will soon give the country it's next Black Senator, but is he the real deal?

Can a Black man go to Boston and dare to utter hopes of becoming US Senator of Illinois? Can a Black democrat run for Senator in one of the nation's most influential states, and have his White republican oppone\nt step down due to scandal, and see Alan Keyes as his worst threat? Can a Black IL candidate have it so good? It's like Hillary Clinton running against Anna Nicole Smith, a can't miss if I ever saw one. That is the true "audacity of hope," and the real audacity is, it will probably happen...more

Not that major media cares or anything but, whats the big deal? Prison abuse by what are essentially prison guards runs across the board. So now everyone is calling for the head of the world's biggest Warden, Donald Rumsfield. While all this is going on, a long-hidden but ugly truth is coming to light, abuse of inmates in American prisons. Just as the videotaped footage of the Rodney King beating made a reluctant nation face the reality of police brutality, so too will the gory photos of prisoners in Abu Ghraib make a nation partially in deniel look at it's own "correction" system....more

The Future looks Glum as leading doctors, world leaders, and activists add their own views and thesis to those of Dr. Graves.

Is the US actually willing to cooperate with the very man who accussed them of creating the AIDS virus and directing it towards people of African descent? According to a 5/3 memo from Zygote Media, the answer seems to be yes. The report titled: "US Finds missing Special 'AIDS' Virus Progress Reports," states that National Cancer Institute officials have recovered documents long-thought destroyed as part of what Dr. Graves and other medical researchers claim was part of a '70's government coverup. According to Zygote: "The recovered virus development documents date back as early as 1965 and were uncovered as a result of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the full disclosure of the US Special Virus Program." Just what this "Special Virus" is, still remains a lingering question for many...more

How Black African leaders can go from mutilating their women and children, to manipulating oil-flow in order to develop their nations.

The temptation or peer-pressure to lie in the corporate world must be pretty intense, even when things are going relatively well. This seems to be the case with the Royal/Dutch Shell Group, the British and Dutch company inflated their production growth and reserves replacement and as a result they are under investigation by regulators in Europe and the US. This all has to do with a rift between the company’s two most powerful men, Sir Philip Watts, the company chairman since ’01, and Walter van de Vijver who occupies Watts’ old position as head of exploration and production...more

How Western interference prevents us from knowing what Africa is truly capable of.

04.09.04

Colonialism and corporate colonialism still have their harmful effect on the Dark Continent. In Central Africa years of civil wars and its by-product of poverty, superstition, and family disruption have thrown a defacto smokescreen in front of the original causes of these problems. A more immediate and visible problem seems to have been found, the Congo’s children, according to a report months ago by Sudarsan Raghavan of Knight Ridder newpapers...more

Condoleeza has a good shot and great handle, but don’t expect any slam dunks.

04.08.04

President Bush finally gave the word to allow one of his top advisers to testify publicly under oath before the 9/11 Commission. Actually it’s a trade-off, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will submit to questioning from the ten-member panel in private, and not under oath. What does this tell you? Bush and Dick can say anything, while National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice is bound to tell the truth. There are those who fear for Rice’ job as a possible result of such scrutiny. Not if you examined the way Rice handled herself during the actual media questioning just to see if she’ll testify under oath. Save your concern for the Kean Commission panel...more

Close ties to Blacks
Appointment of five Black cabinet members put him under microscope and made him a target.

"You are the dumbest bunch of White boys I have ever seen," he reprimanded us for coming into the Oval Office as an all-White all-male group. He mentioned the names of several minority women whom he expected to have included the next time,' 'don't let it happen again.'

The unofficial update on Bush’ most key insiders for procurement of foreign oil.

There is a cabinet that operates outside the realm of President Bush’s regular Cabinet. A cabinet that functions for the sole purpose of paving the way for the president to have easier access to overseas oil after the military has already done the dirty work of wiping away opposition government, and installing democratic regimes. Collectively (and loosely) named after “Slick 50” synthetic engine oil) this writer calls them the Slick 15 Oil Cabinet...more

Beneath the hype of the democratic judicial filibuster is the agreement reached between the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (commonly known as the 9/11 commission, or 9/11 panel) and the Bush Administration. The Chairman of this independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks is Thomas Kean (who took over after Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell made a hasty retreat), and he’s been saying that the commission has the power to issue subpoenas, and didn’t rule out sending a few to the White House. “We’re trying to close this phase of document-procurement and get busy on the other stages of the investigation,” Kean recently said to the Associated Press. This commission has been looking into and reporting on the events of September 11, 2001, the causes, and the US response, diplomacy, immigration, commercial aviation, and funding to terrorist organizations. Though calling itself an “independent” commission, taxpayers are reportedly putting out $3 million, which makes it anything-but...more

11.18.03

A 10/8/03 business report by Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press quotes Bush recently after a meeting with his cabinet at the White House: “The Congress needs to join with administration to pass good law so that the American people can find work.” Loven then added “Bush also stated as he often does that his administration ‘inherited’ an economic recession from former President Clinton-even though the downturn began in March 2001, two months after Bush took office. The recession ended that November, according to a panel academic economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research which has the job of tracking dates.”...more

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Hmmm, they must have caught that one on the Hubble telescope. For much of the summer this laughable allegation dominated the headlines. Visions of young uranium street corner dealers in Niger peddling their product to the Iraqi leader arriving incognito fade into view. All this really does is reveal GW’s high-school prankster mentality in what is the most intelligence-insulting pretext to Iraqi invasion, a grasp for straws that should head for a California-style recall, or a Clintonian witch-hunt...more

I’ve always suspected laws that target cigar smokers to be half filter, and half hypocrisy. But that’s me, its all I smoke. Sneaking up behind us is the runaway train known as the smoking ban. Cigarette smokers-who greatly outnumber us-are being swept up. The really strange part about this whole dilemma is, the government spends billions subsidizing tobacco, where do they get off banning it from public establishments? How does such a thing-that no doubt originates based on the personal opinion of just one or a few butt-heads-gain such momentum? ...more

10.1.03

Why Africans continue to support sadistic leaders I thought it strange coincidence that Liberian President Charles Taylor left a week before the death of another despot who trashed his own nation, former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Over the decades it seems that most African leaders feel that they are the only ones in their country who enjoy food, water, gas, electricity, and peace. If it seems that certain parts of Africa resemble DC Comics’ backward “Bizarro World,” then rest assured its more by design, than by destiny...more

One day a talk radio show host is giving advice to women who were experiencing physical and verbal abuse from their husbands and boyfriends to leave (or put him out) . A caller, a man doubtlessly abusing his mate called and started accusing the host of influencing women to “break their vows.” The caller’s tirade was never aired due to his language. I began thinking about the true meaning of “vows” this clown was harboring. I have yet to attend any wedding where the woman vowed to take abuse. I suppose there’s a big doughnut hole in his Bible once you get to Ephesians 5: 28-29...more

A brief history of the University of Michigan’s admissions case, and the forces that almost destroyed quotas.

The true shame of the whole eight year debacle was that the University of Michigan had to explain they’re own admissions policy. Once again major media grants the public at large another well worn chance to rake affirmative action over the coals. Once again the country being brainwashed to think that African Americans are getting something for nothing through race initiatives that have in actuality barely made a dent in terms of economic equality for Blacks. Once again the outrage of White racism is being drowned-out by the few White Americans ranting against a program that has barely adversely affected them...more

A California Black man recently spent the Independence Day weekend in jail, reportedly returning home with bruises and scars. Actually for many Black men, his was a typical weekend. Until you discover who this man is, and what are the particulars of his case. It was only several hours before that he opened arguments for the full disclosure of the formerly secret US Special Virus Program, under the Freedom of Information Act. The program that he feels can prove that the United States government is behind the making of the virus that causes AIDS...more

It seems to more than a few of us that Whites today are turning back the clock on issues regarding race, the convenient part about that for many of them, is many are too young to have actually witnessed the civil rights era, and feel they can actually approach the reality of multi-cultural agendas as if they are the victim or underdog.

This is not one of those examples. This is about Taylor County High School, A school which held its first integrated prom not in ‘60’s, not during the ‘70’s, or ‘80’s, or ‘90’s, but just last year 2002. One of the good things about the civil rights era is that the emerging Black southern voter population pushed the hard-core racist redneck to the backwoods, where they belong. When it became time for the successive Black urban political and industrial power-base to play a major role to rebuild cities like Atlanta into the international metropolitan center it is today, “Bubba” wasn’t a factor. Albany GA is one of those backwoods towns, they just so happen to have some Blacks still living there, and a small number of juniors still clinging to their parents and grandparents twisted ancient values...more

You may know them as the Federal Communications Commission, but when you sound out the letters FCC, what word comes out of your mouth? That’s right, the “F” word. Its quite plain now that thanks to Mike Powell, we in the Black media are going to get FCCed. But Then again, what else is new. When it actually comes down to it we can’t blame it all on Powell, the real scoop is, a significant number of Black newspapers have long since stopped being a real voice for Blacks, and have went way off into some advertising driven A-racial fluff. As a result they have disdained breaking stories about police brutality (although they will follow up on reports on brutality first written by White news sources), these Black editors watch schools shut down in the inner city, and claim its not about race, its about money, or anything but race (never-mind that suburban schools always seem to have enough money to educate their own). Not to mention the complete lack of dialogue that even mildly questions the Bush administration from the time of its questionable presidential victory, to the war on Iraq...more

Time is truly wastin’, there’s no guarantee yeah, smile is in the makin’ we gotta fight the powers that be.
Got so many voices, sayin’ all the same, givin’ up all around me, faces full of pain.
Fight the Power: The Isley Brothers (1975)

”Possibly the biggest argument against President Bush being unable to find the highly-claimed WMDs is that “if the president wanted to find the weapons, he could simply have planted them.” Right, you mean the same way a bad cop plants drugs on a Black suspect?” This latest common conservative talk-radio sound-bite (feel free to pin quote on any right-wing radio grunt of your choosing) , while at the same time wanting to take W off the hook, essentially makes the commander-in-chief look like just another stupid policeman.
The most telltale sign of Bush administration corruption is its high number of departing officials, especially since the war. Major media is of course choosing not to do any heavy coverage of the wave of departure, this in itself is a crime. Because of this, the resignations of roughly a dozen high-ranking Bush appointees from John Brady Kiesling to Christine Todd Whitman have avoided media scrutiny. Most notable among them is the recent resignation of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher due in July. Doubtless no man has been ordered to tell more lies in a 3-year-period than the outgoing Press Secretary. Fleisher simply cites pressure as his reason to bounce, even joking that he’ll take up something safe like wrestling alligators as his next job. I suspect Ari had to fabricate more stories than that NY Times brother Jayson Blair ever wished he could. But that’s the state this administration has us in, much of White America waiting for weapons of mass destruction like much of Black America waits for reparations. Somewhere in there is a wonderful irony that’s being ignored..more

Dan Eggens’ article in the Washington Post confirms many suspicions across the nation that much of the anti-terror laws that republicans shook hands over was really operation salivate for conservative lawmakers. The 60-page report submitted to the House Judiciary Committee points to gross misuse of the powers granted under the post-9/11 fear factor, to pursue violations relating to drugs, bank theft, and credit card fraud...more

With access to Iraqi oil uncertain even after a projected victory over Iraq, now is the time for various leaders of African nations to unite before the inevitable, an invasion of troops into key areas of Africa for the same black gold that Bush and his oil cabinet have set their sights on since his invasion of the White House. Its been said that a crop of countries are emerging in Africa as major players in the petroleum industry. Because this is taking place in Africa is no reason to believe those players are Black...more

Several officials are making a case to remove the President To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

Roughly 2 months after the US Iraqi invasion, and still no weapons of mass destruction other than the several really-bad allied helicopter pilots. According to Rollcall; Capitol Hill’s newspaper, there are formal efforts underway to Impeach President Bush. Understand that George Walker Bush, former ace test pilot for the Texas Air National Guard (after jumping over a waiting list to protect the lone star state from those mean ‘ol Viet-cong) was more than determined to initiate a strike against Iraq “regardless.” ...more

WHO’S REALLY CLEANING UP?
04.04.03

Amid little publicity, Halliburton pulls out of Iraqi post-war cleanup project, after winning a contract it never bid on, over other powerful well-connected corporations.

“War is not the answer,” may have worked for late-singer Marvin Gaye and today’s anti-war protesters, but for a host of government contractors, when it comes to post-war cleanup, they’re answering machine is on. A 3/23/03 New York Times feature asked the question “Which companies will put Iraq back together?” Several were named as candidates for what writer Diana B. Henriques calls “the largest postwar rebuilding since the Marshall plan in Europe after WWII.” Of primary concern regarding this reconstruction is dousing the fires of 7 oil wells set by Iraqi forces south of the country, rebuilding Iraq’s only deep water port (the harbor at Umm Qasr), building airports, reconstructing power plants and other utility and services institutions.

American companies only, will take part in what Times describes as a secret bidding list. The price stands to cost the taxpayers a reported $25-100 billion. Among them are companies with ties to powerful government officials, such as Halliburton; the energy and construction firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, considered by some to be Texas’ biggest nuclear plant builder. The Bechtel Corporation, a San Francisco firm considered the largest contractor in the country and once headed by George Shultz, a former Nixon Secretary of State, Caspar Weinberger, a Reagan Defense Secretary, former CIA directors William Casey and John McCone. Also named was Bechtel’s rival Parsons, from Pasadena CA, Louis Berger of East Orange NJ-currently under contract to redevelop Afghanistan, and Fluor, which also has ties to former top US intelligence and Pentagon officials.

Evidently the documents were so secret, that 3 days later, Associated Press reported Halliburton as winning the contract, without any bidding. Kind of like a Bush-style victory, actually it was the KB&R division that was awarded the contract, naturally this raised a few left eyebrows. After all, a company formerly run by the vp-who is said to have earned up to $60 million during his tenure from ’95-2000-winning a postwar rebuilding job worth billions, without even submitting a bid? Message to all contractors: Change your last name to Cheney. What am I saying? Cheney no longer works for Halliburton, either he’s innocent, or call him the new Tricky Dick. According to AP, the US Army Corps of Engineers gave the main Iraqi oil-well firefighting contract to KB&R, which in turn subcontracted it out to Boots and Coots International (over 50% of the money is due to be spent by subcontractors). GW spokesman Ari Fleischer told AP he didn’t have any details of the deals of the contract, none of this impresses members of Congress who complained about the secrecy from taxpayers, and what they see as the arrogance of the whole process, while the UN questioned why only American companies were offered postwar contracts. Oh well, alls fair in love and damage control.

Another three days after the awarded contract, Newsweek reports that Halliburton announced it is no longer in the running for the prime Iraqi contract although it may remain on as the subcontractor. No doubt the constant connection with Cheney was sparking too much bad PR, especially in a war nobody really wants (except Bush of course). Back in mid-February, Bush reportedly asked Halliburton and four other companies to bid on the Iraqi contract. This was a month before the 3/19 US strike on Saddam. That’s like the NFL commissioner asking the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders to go ahead and make hotel reservations, a month before the Superbowl, even though the playoffs just began. Spokespersons for both Cheney and Halliburton deny having anything to do with the contracts. A report in the 3/15 Economist disclosed that on March 6th the Pentagon announced that a division of Halliburton (likely KB&R), will co-ordinate the oil-fire fighting efforts if they are needed. Their stand-by virtually fly in the face of denials of political influence by the firm that awards the contracts USAID.

At any rate save your violin strings, Halliburton has been doing well over the past year. Over the past 3 months their price change has been at 16.5%, the average for other Oil&Gas Equipment & Services 14.30 pct.pts. Halliburton outperformed the percentage of all stocks by 86.5%.Halliburton also saw a price change in the past 6 months of 62.5%, the difference from the average Oil & Gas industry group 46.90 pct. Pts., out-performing 93% of all stocks. Over the past 12 months Halliburton’s price changed 25.6%, out-performing 91% of all stocks. They’re a different company from the one that almost went bankrupt in Jan. 2002, when Tricky-Dick Cheney cashed out just before the collapse, too different. Too bad for Bush, he had plans for KB&R in Iraq, they also build military bases. Like Germany and Japan, the US never intends to leave Iraq, or the Middle East.

DRIVING WHILE ALONE
ONE MAN SQUAD CARS, FEW PROS, TOO MANY CONS

Two years ago Lt. Sean O’Brien wrote a column in the Buffalo Police Department’s local union paper. O’Brien looked into the high risk of death or injury to officers patrolling solo in squad cars across the nation. At that time 41 officers were killed over a three-month-period, 17 were from automobile accidents, 15 by gunfire, 3 by vehicular assault, 2 more were struck by vehicles, 1 killed by assault and one more killed in a motorcycle accident. Of the 15 killed by gunfire, 12 were in one man cars (with 7 of them answering what is known as “low priority calls”). O’Brien’s point “one man cars are a tragedy waiting to happen.”

This “tragedy” will be implemented over the next several months, and has been termed “reinventing” the department. Warning: whenever city officials start using words like “reinvent,” and “historic breakthrough,” be afraid, be very afraid. I think I can safely speak for the majority of inner-city Buffalo when I say that this is not my model of local police reform. While I don’t oppose the officer’s back pay for such dangerous work, just an increase in visibility alone has been a proven reduction to crime.

Then again maybe it was the presence of outside cops, for example State Troopers, that have garnered the most respect from criminals, as they did when they arrived during the spring of 2001 following a record number of murders during May of that year. Buffalo cops lost the respect of young thugs because too many of them were on the take, or interwoven in the local crime scene through shakedowns, brutality, or just plain indifference. The Justice Departments investigation confirmed the feeling of many Buffalo residents; who needs criminals when we have the Buffalo police?

Over the years I have been very critical of the department due to misconduct (corruption, profiling, brutality), PBA president Robert Meegan Jr. resents the Department of Justice’ expanded investigation of local police misconduct, which stems from certain officer’s misuse of pepper spray. Well Duuuh! Obviously it would serve the interest of police if people refrain from putting two and two together. The next best step is to hire a lawyer-common sense’ most ardent enemy-PBA attorney Tom Burton contest opponents of CAP spray on 2 grounds. 1-it’s safe compared to nightsticks, batons etc., 2-CAP spray use pales when compared to overall arrest activity. “Arrest activity?” Meegan and Erie County DA Jack Clark have never seen a bad cop they didn’t like.

In spite of this, I however do not support a reduced police force, only a competent one. This latest measure-as is the cutbacks of all local services that taxpayers need most-is being touted as the all-encompassing effort to save money, but this reduction stands to cost both the lives of officers and civilians.

Another problem I have with the police cutbacks, is that it sees no necessity to cut the city’s worst cops. The 3/8/03 report that detectives Gerald Skinner, Paul Skinner, and Sly Acosta were back on the payroll due to being under investigation is not encouraging at all. The three are still suspended, and though this may be news to suburbia, the corruption of South Buffalo’s Skinner brothers is well known among Blacks in Buffalo, and has been for years. Jerry Skinner’s investigation actually precedes that of Black officer Darnell Parker, it hit a snag and was recently resumed according to a police source. This case runs deep enough for a review of past arrests to be reopened due to alleged setups, in addition to his shakedown feeding frenzy, and brutality. Of the 3, Gerald still sits in jail.

Broken Clocks and the Death Penalty

“Fry ‘em all!” you say. On the one hand you have Aaron Patterson, one of four death row inmates recently pardoned by just-departed Governor George Ryan attending an MLK breakfast in Chicago. On the other you have Ohio’s Odraye Jones on death row for 4 years in Mansfield Correctional Institution for the shooting death of Ashtabula Police Department officer William Glover. While circumstances around the tragedy are questionable, and he was represented by a Public Defender, many are more than willing to believe he received a fair trial.

My problem with the death penalty is contested on two points; the first is obvious, racial disparity. Capital cases are grounded in DA and judicial racism, corruption, cover-up and something called evidence suppression. How for instance does one suppress that which makes the entire circumstance exist? Isn’t that like outlawing the law of gravity? I mean first, for an attorney to even request for the evidence to be suppressed, he has to… well, admit that it’s evidence. Then show the time and try to ask a judge that it not be presented in court, and many times the judge goes along with this.

It is the same type of dismissal of logic that has led a dozen scientists and professors to ban together and break tradition by actually advocating the penalty by challenging the very grounds on which it stands; the race bias, the questions of the innocence of the perpetrators, and the long-held view that the death penalty was never a deterrent for crime. A 1/7/03 USA Today cover story felt the need to hi-light what is actually a tiny percentile of professors (less than 1 percent) who have taken a 2nd look at the country’s ultimate penalty. Of course in this age of information and misinformation, you can debunk anything no matter how obvious the facts are stacked against you.

It is no coincidence these researchers are being charged-up, so to speak. This counters the ‘90’s research done by various law students that have actually exonerated several inmates. Couple that with the recent events in Illinois, republicans feel the death penalty is in need of friends. A conservative without the death penalty is like a bar without alcohol. For this bar, happy hour began closing 30 years ago when during that period 100 people were commuted from the row because they were innocent. The researchers say only a third were actually innocent, the rest were released on technicalities. In most cases a third percent of error can cause a program to be shut down. I say even a broken clock is right twice a day, but if it were right 9 out of ten times it would still need fixing. Death row is that broken clock.

Adding to the high risk of innocent people executed, is the plain reality that in many cases of murder involving more than one suspect, it is the accomplice waiting to die, not the actual killer (this person is usually the most uneducated among the group). It is for these reasons among others that two and a half days before the end of his term, Governor Ryan-a former advocate for death row-made a tough decision by commuting 164 death row inmates and freeing 4 more. But as he stated, his responsibilities were more important than his own bias, but to the people he represented. What’s not being mentioned, is perhaps he just got tired of what basically amounted to judicial incompetence. He is not alone; the American Bar Association is now challenging the courts to fix the problematic defense systems of accused killers.

Timing is everything in Bush’s White House:
News of President receiving 12,000-page Iraqi weapons document, overshadows Senate report that Sept. 11th attack was preventable.

Now I ask you, you and I are feuding against each other, what makes you think I’m gonna let you, or someone sent by you to inspect my weapons? The White House has historically been a study in mind games. It’s a true art of war to pretend there are rules. Nobody does it better than the US government.

The previous UN weapons inspection in Iraq was back in ’93. The report was only thirty pages long. One would imagine the inspection team rolling on the floor with laughter before flying back into the New York sunset. Surely there are Bronx street gangs with better arsenal they must have felt, but since then, obtaining the reports over the years has been like pulling teeth. Iraqi resistance to unrestricted UN access of probable weapons has led to diplomatic crises from 1997-98. So now there’s wide news of Iraq’s grudgingly disclosed 12,000 page weapons inventory, but what should be of much more concern to GW is Pakistan’s weapons document, how many pages long is uncertain, but it only needs one, under ‘nuclear bomb.’ The only Muslim state that has the bomb, and considered to be a major ally of the Taliban

But expect GW to be true to form, and force any issue he can with Iraq; the nation that didn’t blow up the World Trade Center. While news of this dominated the airwaves, another investigation is quietly taking shape, the House and Senate investigations regarding whether the President had advanced knowledge of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks. Not quite the inquiry former GA congresswoman Cynthia McKinney called and eventually lost her job over, but still a probe Bush has been conspicuously trying to outmaneuver. Only in America can you expose a governmental conspiracy, call for an investigation, and be spitefully vilified and made to look like a loon and be virtually out of the picture before said imminent investigation proves you to have been correct. This is the reason why I constantly invoke McKinney, for Whitehouse spokesmen, the press, and conservative talk-radio grunts to team together and suggest we don’t take her seriously while actually knowing about the hearings, betrays a very disturbing angle regarding American skepticism.

But few will comment on the reports of last January 29th when congressional and White House sources disclosed to CNN how Bush asked Senate majority leader Tom Daschle to limit the congressional investigation into the events of 9/11. It was then that Bush was said to have requested at a private meeting with congressional leaders, that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry that some lawmakers (like McKinney) have proposed. This request to Daschle followed a similar request from Vice President Dick Cheney on 1/25/02. Daschle agreed to this lukewarm option, stating from the other side of his mouth that “the American people are entitled to know what happened and why.”

Why! Why what? A now-republican House and Senate will only confirm any breakdowns to determine if some agent(s) where asleep at the switch, not to answer any issues raised by McKinney at the 9/14 Congressional Black Caucus reception in Georgia such as; how the President was warned of plans to hijack commercial aircraft and crash them into key building in the US, and that 24-hour fighter cover was placed over his ranch in Crawford Texas weeks prior to the attacks, or ignored warnings of FBI agents to conduct investigations into suspicious activities in some US flight schools. The latest Senate report that 9/11 was “preventable”, is just a knock on the door, an independent probe is imminent.

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