MORE KILPATRICK DRAMA

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick just won’t quit. He’s already cost the city millions of dollar with a settlement with three police officers who were fired or forced to resign for investigating claims that Kilpatrick used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs. Now, a fourth officer has filed suit against the city, saying he was wrongly forced from his position.
If only the City Council could force Kilpatrick from his.
In proposed rules made public Tuesday, any attempt by the Council to oust Kilpatrick will require a majority of its nine members to sit through every minute of the forfeiture hearings and only those who attend can vote on his fate. The hearings are scheduled to begin July 7.
The mayor’s political career is not the only one at risk. His mother, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, is currently faced with two other Democratic candidates vying for the 13th Congressional District seat she has held since 1996. State Sen. Martha Scott and former state Rep. Mary Waters both entered the race after Mayor Kilpatrick was charged with eight felony counts relating to a whistle-blower lawsuit, which the city ended up settling for $8.4 million in taxpayer money.

Barack Obama STANDS FIRM On His Support Of Affirmative Action

Shortly after Hillary Rodham Clinton suspended her presidential campaign and urged her supporters — especially women — to embrace Barack Obama's White House bid, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee gave them another reason to rally to his side.
(Photo - Obama: Opposes ballot initiatives / USA TODAY )
In response to a question I put to him a day earlier, Obama answered that he opposes efforts to pass constitutional amendments this year in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska to ban affirmative action in state contracting and college admissions.
"Sen. Obama believes in a country in which opportunity is available to all Americans, regardless of their race, gender or economic status. That's why he opposes these ballot initiatives, which would roll back opportunity for millions of Americans and cripple efforts to break down historic barriers to the progress of qualified women and minorities," Candice Tolliver, an Obama campaign spokesperson, told me.
White women and blacks are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action programs.
Courageous action
While Obama has long been on record in support of affirmative action, speaking out against the effort by Ward Connerly, a black California businessman who spearheaded successful campaigns to ban it in California, Michigan and Washington, is an act of political courage.
It comes at a time when Obama is trying to win over working-class whites, many of whom believe affirmative action gains by women and blacks come at their expense. Nothing reflects Obama's call for a departure from the old political thinking more than his belief that he can address the concerns of disaffected whites without abandoning the interests of minorities and women —the Democrats' core constituencies.
Race has long been a troublesome issue in U.S. politics. But as far back as July, Obama has talked about finding creative ways to bring together people who often have been on opposite ends of this nation's racial schism. During an interview 11 months ago, I asked him how he would overcome resistance to funding for anti-poverty programs if he were elected president.
Two-pronged approach
"I don't think you can do it in isolation. You can't solve the problem of poverty if you're not speaking to the larger anxieties that working-class families feel as well," he said. Translation: In order to win widespread support for increased aid to blacks, who are disproportionately poor, he must also make a parallel effort to remedy some of the gnawing problems of middle-class whites.
Instead of viewing the two groups as competing forces, Obama's strategy is to focus on what links them. Not surprisingly, a day after he went to Virginia — which hasn't gone Democratic in a presidential election since 1964 — to launch his general election campaign, Obama expressed strong opposition to the anti-affirmative action initiatives. His action couldn't come at a better time. Civil rights organizations are struggling to raise money to combat Connerly's campaign, which they managed to derail in Missouri and Oklahoma, where supporters failed to get enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot.
While the initiative has been put on the ballot in Colorado, neither Arizona nor Nebraska has yet to get enough signatures to submit these constitutional amendments to voters in November.They both face early July deadlines.
By opposing this effort at the same time that he's reaching out to working-class whites, Obama is forging a strategy that could deal a fatal blow to the movement Connerly has led for more than a decade. That would be a good thing.
Obama believes America can keep its promise to women and blacks without dashing the hopes of working-class whites. He doesn't think opportunity guarantees made to one group must come at the expense of another. His is admittedly a new political vision, one that may well propel him into the White House —and help this nation fully live up to its promise.
DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

Today's Foolywang! This ISN"T EVEN FUNNY!

Why????????? If you have a vice, then deal with, but DO NOT EXPOSE YOUR CHILDREN TO IT! Somebody needs to call CPS on this one! Do ya think the child is close enough to get the high too??? Jesus Take The Wheel!

Oh No! THE NUMBER OF BLACKS CONVERTING TO MORMONISM RISES: They are attracted by the church's commitment to diversity.

Angela Carson, a 28-year-old black woman, left her Baptist church in New York last year feeling uninspired and removed from the congregation. She visited many traditional black churches, but she found her new home with the Harlem branch of the Mormon Church.

The religious pillars of service and community outreach appealed to Carson, but so did something that may surprise many blacks: the commitment to diversity she saw at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.


"I was approached by two younger African-American Mormon missionaries, and it made me think about the church in a different way," she said. "So many people have asked me why I joined a racist religion, which makes me sad that people would think this faith teaches hate."


Carson and other blacks who have left churches long associated with their communities, such as the Baptist and the African Methodist Episcopal congregations, say they often find cultural resistance from their families and friends who may be skeptical of how the Mormon Church can minister to a black American.


"I remember my dad telling me that if I joined the church, I would have a hard time finding an African-American husband," Carson said. "I thought about marriage prospects, but I date men from all persuasions, so it wasn't an issue."


There are roughly 13 million Mormons worldwide, and about half of those live in the United States, according to figures frequently cited by the church, which doesn't record members' racial or ethnic background.


However, about 3 percent of the Mormon Church in America is black, and less than 0.5 percent of black Americans are Mormon, according to a survey in 2007 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Policy. That would translate to slightly less than 200,000 black Mormons in America - a huge increase from the 5,000 to 10,000 estimated by many experts at the turn of the century.


The growth of Mormonism among blacks is commonly tied to two events.

Read the rest of this story here. (Source: John Dorman/Columbia News Service)

Whoopi vs Elisabeth vs Obama vs McCain

"Hot Topics" got really heated this morning when Elizabitch Hasselbeck and Whoopi Goldberg went at it over a discussion about Barack Obama vs. John McCain.

BOB DYLAN OUT OF SECLUSION TO BACK OBAMA: Folk icon says presidential nominee is "redefining the nature of politics from the ground up."

Bob Dylan, whose 1964 anthem "The Times They are a-Changin'" came to symbolize his generation's social struggle against the establishment, says presidential nominee and "change" proponent Barack Obama is inspiring the same movement in 2008.
In an interview with London's Times, Dylan gives a ringing endorsement to the first ever black presidential candidate, claiming he is "redefining the nature of politics from the ground up."
"He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out," said Dylan, 67. "Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to." He added: “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future."
Memorable lines from Dylan's "The Times They are a-Changin'" included: "Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall," and: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'."

THE DEFENSE RESTS IN R. KELLY CASE: Rebuttal witnesses expected today; closing arguments could begin Thursday.

*After two days of testimony, defense attorneys rested their case yesterday in R. Kelly's child pornography trial in Chicago, according to reports.
The singer's attorney, Ed Genson, wrapped things up early Monday without calling any witnesses to the stand. Jurors sat in court for several minutes before they were dismissed by the judge and sent home for the day.
Today, prosecutors plan to call two rebuttal witnesses. According to the Chicago Tribune, one is Grant Frederics, a forensic video analyst who found what appeared to be a mole on the back of the man in the sex tape.
The defense told jurors in opening statements that Kelly has had a mole on his back since childhood and that since there was no mole on the back of the male participant in the video, Kelly could not be the man on the tape. Frederics is expected to rebut testimony from the defense's forensic expert, Dr. Charles Palm, who said in his examination of the videotape that he could not find a mole.
The prosecution also plans to call Robert Wolf, an assistant district attorney from Atlanta who is expected to deny suggestions that Lisa Van Allen, who testified she had a three-way sexual encounter with Kelly and the alleged underage victim, was given a deal to testify in the Kelly case.
The defense suggested that Van Allen's boyfriend, a felon who was recently arrested for possession of a loaded AK-47 and drugs in his suburban Atlanta home, was given probation by the Fulton County district attorney's office because Van Allen testified in the trial.
Cook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan told jurors closing arguments are likely to begin on Thursday.