Duane Jackson said his brush with terrorism and celebrity taught him that it made sense to get involved.

“It was kind of an epiphany for me,” he said. “I had a call from President (Barack) Obama. I had people from all over the world come and thank me for, you know, seeing something and saying something. I can tell people, especially young people and people in the minority communities, it’s OK to get involved in the running of this country.”

The 59-year-old Jackson is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Nan Hayworth in his home district north of New York City.

A Navy veteran, Jackson said he has 15 years of experience in city planning and housing, including posts with New York City’s education and housing departments. He sees his years as a vendor as “small-business experience.”

On May 1, 2010, Jackson was hawking handbags when he and another vendor spotted an SUV, idling and abandoned, in a no-parking zone near the Broadway theater showing “The Lion King.” They notified police as the vehicle started to smoke, and inside was a potentially powerful propane-and-gasoline bomb that authorities said might have begun to detonate but did not explode.

Obama called Jackson to thank him.

Self-proclaimed terrorist Faisal Shahzad admitted plotting to set off the bomb and was sent to prison for life.

Jackson’s campaign for Congress was first reported in The Journal News.

Jackson, married with two children, lives in Buchanan, home of the Indian Point nuclear plants. He said he favors new 20-year licenses for the plants so that the region will have time to transition to new power sources.

He said Republicans, and Hayworth in particular, “are out of touch with the voters in the Hudson Valley.”

A call to Hayworth’s office was not immediately returned.

Jackson said he will probably make a formal announcement of his candidacy this week in Buchanan. His campaign has a website and a phone number for donors to call. At least three other Democrats are in the race.

“I’m not going to have $200,000 for the primary,” Jackson said. “But I’m an ordinary guy, and I think I can get out the Democratic base.”

SEE ALSO:

Did M.I.A. Go Too Far With The Bird Flip?

SEE ALSO: Anita Hill: Obama’s Mortgage Plan A “Quick Fix”

Dubbed in the press as the “strip club bill,” the legislation received a whopping 395-27 vote. Essentially, the bill would prevent welfare recipients from accessing their benefits in strip clubs, casinos, and liquor stores. The Republican-backed proposal was phrased as an attempt to cut down waste and abuse of the federal program.

However controversial, the bill’s aims are not new; House Republicans voted in similar fashion back in December during the payroll tax extension debacle. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), the mastermind behind bill H.R. 3567, created the bill because he was against the “fraudulent misuse of funds.”

House Republicans are voting on the bill again as part of negotiations between the House and Senate for a yearlong payroll tax extension package and have put pressure on Democrats in Congress to accept the changes since it has passed previously. Some Democrats are going along with the bill in order to speed past other legislative roadblocks.

House Democrats, nearly defenseless, argued in a debate before the vote that the ban would effectively bar citizens from buying necessary food items from a liquor store in case of an emergency.  However, Republicans were careful to not include those stores in the ban and were declared exempt.

Honestly, one has to wonder how many welfare recipients are or have been caught at the strip club. With Americans fighting historic poverty levels, regarding unemployment and foreclosures, why are House Republicans worrying about passing bills that affect welfare recipients?

While Boustany is ironically concerned about the “fraudulent misuse of funds,” Americans must ask themselves if our elected officials are grossly misusing our funds.

SEE ALSO:
Is “The Help” Racist?

Can Crazy Talk Rub Off?

SEE ALSO: All Eight Sandusky Accusers To Testify

But now, just when the country needs HBCUs the most, many in Congress want to slash the federal support HBCUs receive by more than a third — $85 million — even if it means slashing HBCUs’ contribution to the country’s economic and social health.

Read more at the Root.

RELATED:

Historically Black Colleges and Universities Are Worth Saving

The 14 Private College Presidents That Are Paid The Highest Percentage Of Their School’s Expenditure

See Also: Bradley Cooper Named Sexiest Man In The World

See Also: Black Travel: Visit Martha’s Vineyard

10. Mississippi bred.

The first Black senator, Hiram Rhodes Revels, was elected in 1870 in Mississippi after reconstruction, but only served two years.

9. Only Six

There have been only 6 senators in Congress who are African American.

8. Black Republican

Edward William Brooke III was elected senator of Massachusetts as a Republican in 1966. He was the first Black senator elected since reconstruction.

7. Illinois Pipeline

Of the six Black senators, three have been from Illinois.

6.Reconstruction Republicans

Most of the Black congressmen and senators elected during reconstruction were Republican.

5. The Replacement

Roland Burris, the most recent Black senator was a replacement for Barack Obama, the previous senator who had to leave due to running for presidential office.

4. None

There are currently no Black senators in congress.

3. A Senator With A “View”

Television personality Barbara Walters claimed to have an affair with Edward Brooke, the African American senator from Massachusetts.

2. Brains And Braun

Carol Mosley Braun is the first and only African American woman to serve in the Senate.

1. Beer For Senators

There is a beer in Kenya named after Barack Obama called “Obama” beer, but officially known as “Senator Keg” due to his time served in the U.S. Senate.

See also: John Boehner On Occupy Wall Street: ‘I Understand People’s Frustrations’

The Proud Birthplace Of President Barack Obama

Boehner  also chided Obama’s new refinancing schemes for student loans and home mortgages, warning the president that Congress still holds the purse strings.

“We have the ability to limit their use of funds to try to bring this administration to heel,” Boehner said.

“There is nothing that has disappointed me more over the last eight weeks than to watch the president of the United States basically give up on the economy and give up on the American people,” he said.

Read more at the New York Post.

Congress’ disapproval ratings match its all-time low, recorded in October 2008 at the height of the economic crisis.

Only 6 percent of registered voters say that most members of Congress have earned re-election, while 84 percent say it’s time to give someone new a chance, a historic low for the New York Times/CBS poll.

Read more at the New York Times.

RELATED:

New Polls Find Obama At Lowest Approval Rating Of Presidency

Top GOP Contenders Rival Obama On Gallup Polls

Democratic leaders had called for a House Ethics investigation after the initial reports of the allegation. Wu had said that whatever occurred was consensual.

Wu said Tuesday the well-being of his children should come first, so he will resign after Congress resolves the debate over the debt ceiling.

Wu, 56, has won seven terms. In 2004, he won despite acknowledging a decades-old college incident in which he tried to force a former girlfriend to have sex. Voters said they disliked an opponent’s attempt to use that against Wu as part of a political campaign.

RELATED STORIES

More Scandals? Congressman Faces Sexual Harassment Allegations

Good Riddance! Weiner Resignation Official At Midnight

Reps. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Carolyn Maloney of New York, Donna Edwards of Maryland, Jackie Speier of California and Lois Capps of California denounced West for calling Wasserman Schultz “vile, despicable and cowardly” in an email after she criticized his stance on Medicare.

“His words were nothing more than personal attacks,” said Maloney, who appeared with her four female colleagues at a news conference. “It’s incredibly disrespectful.”

The congresswomen, who said they were friends as well as colleagues of Wasserman Schultz, also called on the GOP leadership to rebuke West for his outburst.

According to HuffPost, Wasserman Schultz and West have a history in Florida.

Wasserman Schultz and other women protested outside West’s campaign office about columns that West wrote appearing in a biker magazine. The protesters said the magazine denigrated women.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

But based on the congressional gridlock surrounding the country’s deficit, it’s clear Republicans and Democrats are oblivious to what the American people really want, or need for that matter.

Republicans and Tea Party members say “The American people want spending cuts” and “The American people don’t want tax hikes.”

Democrats and President Obama say “The American people want the rich to be taxed,” “The American people don’t want Social Security and Medicare to be cut.”

“The American people want jobs,” “The American people want a balanced budget,” and so on.

Annoying, huh?

The hackneyed catchphrase is nothing more than an exploitative ploy to sway political debate, and undermine the American people.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said on MSNBC, “Why in the world is there not a balanced budget amendment in the U.S. Senate? That’s the question the American people should be asking…I think the American people would like to see us do that.”

View Sen. Coburn’s comments below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Coburn and nearly all politicians do more harm than good when they invoke their personal views onto the American people. Policy, especially those that pertain to the nation’s economy, should literally come from the people — if you’re going to put words in their mouth, that is.

Rather than speculating what the American people want, politicians should flat out say what it is they personally believe congress should do. A congressman, or senator expressing his or her personal views does not imply that he or she is somehow disingenuous — it implies quite the opposite. What is disingenuous, however, is implicating “the American people” for the sake of political squabble, or persuasion as opposed to actually carrying out the will of the people — which is very skewed at best.

President Obama, too, succumbed to “the American people” mantra. During a press conference, Mr. Obama told reporters that the American people were “sold” on a balanced approach to reaching a debt deal.

Video of President’s statement below:

The difference between Obama and Coburn, and other Republicans, is that Obama (although he exaggerated the numbers) was somewhat accurate in his statements. A majority of the people are sold.

Polls from Gallup and the Washington Post revealed that a majority of Americans do support a mixed approach of spending cuts and tax increases. However, the slippery slope of polls is that a percentage of the people (the minority and undecided) are always ignored, forlornly pushed aside for the accommodation of the “majority.”

Politicians need to be honest with the public, and most importantly honest with themselves. It is understood that congress is elected by the people to serve the people, which implicitly gives them the authority to use their discretion, opinions, etc.

The truth of the matter is that no politician can go before a camera and declare what the American people want, because the American people, and politicians for that matter, will never stand on one solid platform. There is no one, monolithic way of dealing with the economy, nor will there ever be one general opinion from the American public.

So please politicians, I beg you, kill it with the speeches, and get down to compromising for the ones you claim to serve: the people.

RELATED:

Time To Shut Down Ideological Purists In Debt Ceiling Fight

A statement from the White House rejected the plan, which conditions a debt limit hike on a constitutional amendment that would require the government to balance its books each year. The proposal also requires substantial spending cuts and a statutory spending cap as a precondition for raising the debt ceiling.

The White House’s statement classified the plan as “unrealistic policy goals.”

The Huffington Post Reports:

Republicans have been pushing the Cut, Cap and Balance plan largely as a reaffirmation of their conservative principles. But such a proposal has little chance of becoming law; constitutional amendments require a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress, which is unlikely in a Democratic-controlled Senate and maybe even a stretch in the House. And even if it were to pass Congress, an amendment wouldn’t take effect until it was ratified by at least 38 state legislatures.

Still, with an eye on 2012 elections, Republicans want votes on the proposal on the record. The House is scheduled to take up the bill on Tuesday, and the Senate is expected to follow later this week.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

RELATED:

Obama: “Americans Back Me, Not Republicans On Debt Deal”

Newt Gingrich Calls Economy “The Obama Depression”

Vick told a news conference Tuesday that he supports a House bill that would prohibit attendance at organized animal fights. The bill also would impose additional penalties for anyone causing a minor to attend.

Vick said he wants to teach kids not to get mixed up in animal fights and to take away profits from sponsors of these events.

The football star appeared with officials of the Humane Society of the United States and two sponsors of the legislation, Virginia Democrat Jim Moran and Ohio Democrat Betty Sutton. Pennsylvania Republican Tom Marino of Pennsylvania is the bill’s third co-sponsor.

RELATED STORIES

Nike Re-Signs Michael Vick To Endorsement Deal

Michael Vick Surprises Philly Students With $5,000 Scholarships

Demings planned to make a formal announcement Wednesday afternoon in downtown Orlando.

She has served as chief of police since December 2007.

Read More At DailyJournal.net

RELATED:

Terri Sewell’s Election Shows Black Women’s Progress

The New York Times reports:

Mr. Obama said he will not consider a short-term, stop-gap solution to raise the debt ceiling. “This is the United States of America. We don’t manage our affairs in three month increments.”

Obama’s news conference happened just hours before his scheduled meeting with Congressional leaders on a third gathering to reach a deal to reach the nation’s debt ceiling.

The president challenged Republicans to eagerly work alongside Democrats to reach a deal stating, “let’s go.”

Mr. Obama said he will not consider a short-term, stop-and-go solutions to raise the debt ceiling. “This is the United States of America. We don’t manage our affairs in three month increments.”

“It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder,” Mr. Obama said

“So we might as well do it now. Pull off the Band-Aid. Eat our peas. Now is the time to do it.”

Read More At NYTimes.com

RELATED:

Obama Administration Negotiates Debt Ceiling With Lawmakers

The United States government is set to default on its loans on Aug. 2, due to hitting its debt limit of $14.29 trillion on May 16. Although lawmakers can vote to raise the debt ceiling, many members of Congress said they will not approve it until long-term plan to deal with debt.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

RELATED:

Obama, Biden To Meet Fellow Democrats On Debt Ceiling

John Abarr says he believes he will fare better than people might expect because of a backlash against President Barack Obama.

The 42-year-old tried to run for the state Legislature in 2002 but lost in a GOP primary after Republicans actively worked against his candidacy.

Abarr works nights as an auditor a Great Falls motel. He says he no longer organizes for the KKK but is still on its mailing list.

Leading state Republicans are backing Bozeman businessman Steve Daines in 2012. Party leaders believe he’ll be able to win the House seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is running for U.S. Senate.

RELATED STORIES

Teacher’s Mailbox Spray Painted With “KKK”

Cops Say School Janitor Is Hitler Loving, Gun Packing KKK Member

“Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there’s nothing racist about this. It is what it is. If he had been a dynamic, white, state senator elected to Congress he wouldn’t have gotten in the game this fast. This is what made him different. That, combined with the fact that your profession”—another friendly tap of the bumper sticker—”not you, but your profession, was just absolutely compliant. They made up their minds early that they were in love with him. They were in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that.”

Read The Whole Story

RELATED STORIES

Congress Tones Down The Rhetoric After Shootings

Playing Racial Politics In America Today

Federal workers like them across the U.S. will be out of work and without a paycheck if the looming government shutdown isn’t averted. Some say they will make the best of it, using the spare time to get a few things done. Others are far more fearful of how they’ll provide for their families.

The partial shutdown, which could start at midnight Friday, leaves workers with many questions – some serious, others more mundane: How long, if at all, will they be away from their jobs? Who will be deemed “essential” and be told to come to work? Should I cancel the kids’ daycare? Will I still be able to afford that pre-planned vacation?

About 800,000 federal government workers would be affected by a shutdown. Congress would have to decide if furloughed employees could recoup back pay if they have to stay home.

The ripple effects stretch far beyond the Washington metro area, where many federal employees work and live, to places like Chicago, where more than 100 people facing no paychecks protested outside a federal building with signs, “Don’t Punish the Public” and “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

National parks would close, and the IRS would not process paper tax returns. But the nation’s federal prisons would remain open and air traffic controllers would report to work, as would federal inspectors who enforce safety rules and other workers deemed essential.

In Arkansas, National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Koch said he worries about how a shutdown could affect his family, including his two children. He said he’d still report to work for business as usual – but he wouldn’t get a paycheck until the shutdown ended. He’s putting more into savings to prepare, he said.

“I was actually saving up for a Caribbean cruise, but that money may actually be used to live on. It’s certainly more important to make sure we can get the bills paid and provide for our family,” he said.

Others saw opportunity.

John Haines, 64, has worked for the federal government more than 35 years. His duties as deputy director of the office of community renewal at the Department of Housing and Urban Development keep him busy all day long – leaving him little time to prepare for his transition to a new job in the private sector. He said he’s been meaning to update his resume for some time.

“I guarantee you if I’m not coming to work Monday morning that I’ll have more energy to do the kind of work that I should have done already” to prepare for the future, he said.

Haines wasn’t even sure if he could count on a three-day weekend. He was headed to a seminar this weekend in North Carolina and planned to visit a son there who serves in the National Guard, but he didn’t want to miss work Monday if his office was open.

“So I’m not doing any planning beyond the immediate future,” he said.

In Salt Lake City, home to about 12,300 federal employees, Leslie Steffs was applying for new hospital positions. The 55-year-old single mother, an administrative assistant assigned to the downtown Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building, said she was concerned about making mortgage payments.

“Some people say we’ll just have to tough it out, but I have a family to support. This is no joke,” Steffs said.

That was echoed by Justin Castro, a park service worker at the Oklahoma City Bombing National Memorial.

“Not having a check means not paying rent and not paying bills that need to be paid,” he said.

A sheriff on the eastern end of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is encouraging people to visit. Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said he’ll provide emergency services and law enforcement to visitors in the park area within his county in the event of a shutdown.

He said merchants in nearby Estes Park would be hurt by a lack of visitors and shouldn’t be pawns in the budget showdown.

However, Patrick O’Driscoll, a spokesman at the National Park Service’s regional office in suburban Denver, said Smith’s department has no jurisdiction and the park will be closed if there’s a shutdown.

Limitations would not just affect the states. Aaron Tarver, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, said U.S. citizens will still have consular services if needed, but passports would be limited to emergencies. In the Philippines, the U.S. Embassy in Manila would only provide limited and emergency services if a shutdown happened, spokeswoman Rebecca Thompson said.

In Chicago, one of the demonstrators was Julie Sidlo, an Environmental Protection Agency accountant who endured the last government shutdown in the 1990s. This time, she doesn’t know how her job would be affected but is preparing for the worst, she said.

“I’ve sent an email to my mortgage company asking if I can delay payment for the next month, and gotten no response. I don’t know if I can file for unemployment,” Sidlo said, adding that she’s set money aside for several weeks. “I’ve decided not to make any purchases I don’t need to. I don’t go to restaurants.”

The government continued lurching toward a shutdown even as Congress continued negotiations to avert it and leaders expressed hope they could get a deal done. House Republicans advanced a stopgap measure Thursday that would keep the government running for another week, cut $12 billion in domestic spending and fund the Pentagon for the rest of the year. But President Barack Obama threatened to veto the bill even before it passed, and Senate Democrats showed no willingness to allow a vote on it. Both sides failed to reach agreement in middle-of-the-night talks.

Haines, who joined HUD in 1979 and before that worked for the Department of Transportation, said attrition at his workplace had pushed him to more rigorous hours. Though retirement-eligible, he’s now considering private sector jobs in economic development and said the threat of a shutdown laid bare what he said was a depressing change in the way the public values government workers.

“The advantage of being a federal employee is, supposedly, job stability. You sacrifice your total pay for whatever the job satisfaction and a high degree of job security,” Haines said. “That’s the tradeoff, supposedly – and, supposedly, good benefits.”

On Thursday, though, he wasn’t so sure of that.

RELATED STORIES

Obama And GOP Try And Stop Government Shutdown

Obama: Progress, But No Deal To Avert Government Shutdown

In the past 10 days, two D.C.-area transgender women contacted us, each with a separate story about exchanging emails with the ex-congressman. One sent us an ad that Lee allegedly posted on Craigslist in search of trans women; the other sent us a never-before-seen photo that she says Lee sent her after they started chatting by email. Taken together, they present a possible explanation to those who have wondered why such a tame “sex scandal” forced Lee’s hand so quickly.

Read The Whole Story

RELATED STORIES

Woman Who Received Rep. Lee’s Nasty Picture Revealed

GOP’s Chris Lee Resigns After Craigslist Photo Scandal

GOP Congressman’s Racy Pics To Craigslist Girl Revealed

Start Gallery

You can read all about it at Gawker and see other photos. In the pictures, Lee appears in his bathroom taking a pictures with a cell phone camera making a gesture connected to masturbation.

RELATED STORIES

Teyana Taylor Says Explicit Pictures Leaked Online Are Fakes

Demi Lovato Racy Pictures Revealed

To View All The Pictures At Radar Online Click Here

RELATED STORIES

Raunchy Photos Of Va. Congress Candidate Krystal Ball Leaked Online

Bishop Eddie Long Pictures Released By Plaintiff’s Attorney

Republicans, celebrating their second day as the majority power, saw the event as an affirmation of their campaign promise to enforce constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government. Democrats viewed it a little differently.

Some 135 lawmakers from both parties, beginning with new Speaker John Boehner, took turns in reading short sections of the document that has defined the national government since 1789. Republicans in charge of the chamber rattled it off with missionary zeal, as if in a school civics class. Democrats pitched in, but with seemingly less ardor.

The solemnity of the occasion was interrupted once by a woman who shouted “except Obama, except Obama” to the venerable document’s words on a U.S. citizen’s eligibility to be president.

Just as Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., was reading “no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States” is eligible for the presidency, a woman in the visitor’s gallery yelled out, suggesting that it did not apply to President Barack Obama.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who was presiding over the House, banged the gavel and halted the proceedings, warning that such action from members of the public was a violation of House rules. The woman was quickly removed by Capitol police.

So-called “birthers” claim Obama is ineligible to be president because they say there’s no proof he was born in the United States, with many of the skeptics questioning whether he was actually born in Kenya — his father’s home country.

The Obama campaign issued a certificate of live birth in 2008, an official document from Hawaii showing the president’s birth date, city and name, along with his parents’ names and races.

Republicans and their tea party allies, who campaigned during the past election on the need for Washington to stop flouting limits on the powers of the federal government as defined by the Constitution, said the reading of the Constitution gave proof to their dedication to the nation’s original principles. Democrats viewed the proceedings with more suspicion.

Before the reading began, Democrats questioned the GOP decision not to read sections of the 222-year-old governing document that were later amended, such as the Article I, Section 2 clause that classified slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of congressional apportionment and taxation.

“It’s a consequence of who we are,” Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, said in reference to the three-fifth’s clause and its deletion from the reading.

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash, while saying the reading was “special for all of us,” asked whether it was “not intended to create some statement of congressional intent.”

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who organized the reading, noted that Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a pioneer of the civil rights movement, has been asked to read the Thirteenth Amendment that abolishes slavery. He said he hoped the event would “inspire many more Americans to read the Constitution.”

The recital began with Boehner, reading the “We the People” preamble. Then Boehner’s predecessor Nancy Pelosi recited the first paragraph of Article I that describes the powers of the legislative branch.

They were followed, more or less alternating between parties, with lawmakers repeating momentous clauses on the rights and responsibilities of the three branches of governments and more prosaic sections regarding the oversight of forts and dockyards and the ban on office holders receiving gifts from foreign princes.

The entire reading of the seven articles and 27 amendments of the Constitution took about an hour and a half. Members volunteered on a first-come-first-serve with the reading of the Second Amendment clause on the right to bear arms going to freshman Republican Frank Guinta of New Hampshire.

For the first hour of the recital the Republican side of the chamber was full, while far fewer Democrats occupied the other side. After an hour, the number of Republican listeners also declined.

RELATED STORIES

Hawaii’s Governor Wants To Reveal Obama Birth Info

Congress Will Take Out Slavery When Reading Consitution

West and Tim Scott of South Carolina were elected in November as the first black Republicans in Congress since former Rep. J.C. Watts left eight years ago.

While Scott declined to join the caucus, West pushed for membership, saying he wants to try to steer the group away from what he calls failed social welfare programs and big-government solutions.

A strident conservative, West is the first Republican to join the caucus since Rep. Gary Franks of Connecticut lost his seat in 1997.

The 43-member caucus also elected Missouri Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver as its new chairman.

RELATED STORIES

Black GOP Lawmakers Face Tricky Relations With Democrats

Congressional Black Caucus Says GOP Rep. Allen West Can Join

WASHINGTON D.C.

Several members of Congress will be taking part in a historical reading of the Constitution. But they will be using an amended version to avoid some of the history reflected in it, particularly the institution of slavery. Tea Party favorite Republican Congressman, Bob Goodlatte of Georgia is organizing the reading. The Hill reports:

A Goodlatte aide explained that the Constitution will be read in its most modern, amended form. This will prevent lawmakers from having to recite politically uncomfortable portions, notably the provisions on the “three-fifths compromise” under which slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of taxation and representation.

Read The Whole Story

RELATED STORIES

New “Huckleberry Finn” Book Removes The N-Word

Federal Judge Rules Healthcare Reform Law ‘Unconstitutional”

Washington — President Barack Obama is expected to sign legislation that will extend the Bush-Era tax cuts for the wealthy and also extend unemployment benefits to 13 months and cut payroll taxes by 2%.

RELATED STORIES

Bush Tax Cuts Extension Deal Passes The House

CBC ‘Overwhelmingly Opposed’ To Obama’s Tax Cut Deal

Washington — About three hours ago, just as he took the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) staff, tweeted: “You can call what i am doing today whatever you want, you it [sic] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech…”

And he’s been speaking, almost uninterrupted, ever since.

It’s a filibuster as filibusters were originally intended — and, as such, makes a mockery of what the filibuster’s become: a gimmick that allows a minority of senators to quietly impose supermajority requirements on any piece of legislation.

Read more at TPM

Share this post on Facebook! CLICK HERE:

Washington— Charles Rangel has his swagger back, but not his power.

The 40-year congressional veteran on Thursday became the 23rd House member in the nation’s history to be censured for misconduct. As the final chapter of a more than two-year ethics investigation played out, Rangel moved through several zones of emotion: contrition, anger, relief, defiance.

The 80-year-old Democrat remains a political leader in New York’s Harlem. But in the House, his influence has waned. He stepped down from the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee last March after he was criticized in a separate ethics investigation.

In the next Congress, Republicans will control the committee and there’s virtually no chance that Rangel will be the top Democrat. Other senior lawmakers already had moved ahead of him in the committee’s Democratic hierarchy.

Beyond the stain on his career, the censure will have little, practical effect. Rangel’s seat appears safe as long as he wants it. He received nearly 80 percent of the vote last month when he won his 21st term, and easily won his primary. He remains extremely popular with his House colleagues, greeting them by the dozens as he moves through the Capitol.

The House voted 333-79 to censure Rangel for failing to pay all his taxes, filing misleading financial statements, improperly seeking money from corporate interests for a college center bearing his name and setting up a campaign office in a subsidized, New York apartment designated for residential use.

When Rangel spoke to the House before the censure vote, he contritely said, “I brought it on to myself.” He appealed for fairness, but let a half-dozen supporters argue unsuccessfully for a lesser reprimand.

After the vote, speaking to the House, Rangel showed a flash of anger, saying that “at no time has it ever entered my mind to enrich myself or to do violence to the honesty that’s expected of all of us in this House.”

Rangel looked like a relieved man as he tried to leave the chamber. He only made it a third of the way up the aisle when well-wishers stopped and hugged him. He said something that made them laugh, and he smiled during the 10 minutes it took to exit.
Story continues below

By the time of his post-censure news conference, Rangel was defiant.

“History would show that a different standard has been used in this case where I did not curse out the Speaker, I did not try to have sex with minors,” he said, referring to past censure cases.

He said he originally asked for an ethics investigation to counter “reporters who lie knowingly.”

“I am at rest with myself, and I am convinced that when history of this has been written that people will recognize that the vote for censure was a very, very, very political vote,” Rangel said.

The chairman of the ethics committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, told the House the censure her committee recommended was consistent with a Democratic pledge to run “the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history.”

She said Rangel “violated the public trust.”

RELATED STORIES

Despite Conviction, Rangel Gives Away Turkeys In Harlem To Strong Support

Charles Rangel Urges Reprimand, Not Censure

Share this post on Facebook! CLICK HERE:

Rep. Raul Grijalva says white powder in an envelope delivered to his office is a toxic substance. Manuel Johnson with the FBI confirms to News 4 Tucson the powder needs to be tested in Phoenix before any determination can be made.

Grijalva says his staff opened the envelope and found two pieces of paper with swastikas on them along with a baggy of white powder.

Read The Whole Story

RELATED STORIES

VIDEO: Neo-Nazis In The Age Of Obama

Swastika Painted Outside Office Of Black Congressman

CHICAGO – Mulling over a possible run for mayor of Chicago, a defiant Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., spoke out publicly for the first time on Friday about potentially damning details that emerged in former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s recent corruption trial.

Prosecutors dropped a bombshell when they said in court a former state official told them Jackson attended a meeting where a businessman offered to raise $1 million for Blagojevich’s campaign if the governor appointed Jackson to President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat.

Speaking on WLS Radio’s “The Don Wade and Roma Show,” Jackson said he was at the Oct. 28, 2008, meeting in a Chicago restaurant with several prominent members of the city’s Indian-American community but never heard talk about a donations-for-Senate-seat exchange.

One reason he couldn’t participate in the discussion was because other attendees at one point started speaking in a foreign language — possibly Hindi, he said — which he could not understand.

“I did not participate in any part of that conversation nor do I even remember hearing it,” Jackson said.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the possible development of a third regional airport in the southern Chicago suburb of Peotone, he said.

In the Friday interview, Jackson, the son of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, also broached the possibility of charges.

“I assume that (prosecutors) have no evidence or they should have brought a charge,” he said. “If I’m a conspirator — bring it on. But I can’t possibly be a conspiracy to that which I am not a part of or have no knowledge of.”

Blagojevich’s trial ended last month with jurors deadlocked on 23 counts, including allegations he attempted to sell or trade an appointment to Obama’s old Senate seat for a top job or campaign cash. They convicted him on just one charge — lying to the FBI.

Blagojevich, who has denied wrongdoing, is slated to be retried on the deadlocked counts in January. Rep. Jackson’s name is likely to come up at least as often as it did in the first trial. If he does decide to run for Chicago mayor, the retrial could coincide with the campaign.

Mayor Richard M. Daley recently said he would not seek a seventh term, setting off speculation about candidates. The mayoral election is in February, but would-be candidates only have until Nov. 22 to file petitions to run.

Asked if he’d be at ease about his name emerging at the retrial while campaigning, Jackson responded, “No, I’m not at ease with it. Who could possibly be at ease with issues that could divert the attention of a very serious debate about the city’s economic future?”

The prospect of such diversions, he said, would be a consideration as he decided about entering the mayoral race.

Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Chicago’s South Side and adjacent suburbs, has said since Blagojevich’s arrest in December 2008 that he knew nothing about any alleged scheme to use campaign fundraising to buy his way into the Senate.

In reiterating that Friday, Jackson complained that the scrutiny of him has been unfair.

“Whatever happened to the idea that someone is innocent in America until proven guilty?” he said. “I have gone through 20 months of unprecedented accusations — unprecedented besmirching of my character.”

A phone message left Friday with Jackson’s Chicago office by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

While his congressional seat appears safe in the November election — he has won it since 1995 with more than 80 percent of the vote each time — his association with the Blagojevich case has dimmed what once seemed a radiant political future.

Isaac Hayes, Jackson’s GOP challenger, criticized his opponent’s claim of being in the 2008 meeting but not being able to follow the conversation because it was in another language.

“He should resign now and save himself further embarrassment,” Hayes said in a statement.

RELATED STORIES

Ex-Illinois Gov. Subpoenas Jesse Jackson, Jr.

House Ethics Panel Investigating Jesse Jackson Jr.

Start Gallery

LOS ANGELES – A $1.6 billion congressional bailout of sorts could help financially flailing groups that fight to keep young people out of trouble, yet lawmakers are reluctant to take up the expensive proposal amid a sour economy and other, more pressing issues.

The Youth Promise Act would dole out money to organizations like Homeboy Industries, a gang rehabilitation center founded in 2001 under the motto “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” The group’s founder Father Greg Boyle recently had to lay off more than 300 of his 427 workers, most of them former gang members, when expected revenues plummeted.

His organization isn’t the only one suffering. The recession has hit other nonprofits across the country hard and left some wondering how they will survive.

“It would be a lifeline for us and a lifeline for many other organizations,” Omar Jahwar, founder of and chief executive of Dallas-based Vision Regeneration, said of the Youth Promise Act. His group works to prevent youth violence in Dallas County.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who authored the bill, said the tough-on-crime rhetoric that politicians campaign on has proven ineffective. He faulted slogan-driven crime initiatives, such as the “three strikes and you’re out” law, which create lengthy and expensive sentencing requirements.

Scott’s bill currently has 235 co-sponsors in the U.S. House but only 14 in the Senate. Scott does not know if it will get approved this session, in part because it is also competing with another crime bill he opposes, proposed by Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif. That bill would create a string of new criminal offenses and enhanced penalties for gang members.

Scott and Feinstein are negotiating over whether the bills could be combined.

But another bailout bill will be a tough sell, especially among Republicans.

“We cannot afford to throw more money toward another expensive government program at a time when our citizens are burdened with higher and higher federal debt,” said Tracy Hancock, president of Texas-based Golden Corridor Republican Women.

But for Scott, the cost pales in comparison to how much is already spent on punishing young criminals.

In Los Angeles County, it costs $140,000 a year to keep a minor in juvenile hall.

“It’s totally counterproductive,” Scott said. “If you put a small portion of that money into prevention and early intervention, you would have a much better result.”

The Youth Promise Act would distribute money to organizations that form a panel and can show their programs are effective. A city official would be on the panel along with law enforcement agencies, which would also be eligible for funding of their own crime prevention and gang intervention programs.

David Muhlhausen, a senior policy analyst with conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, said youth crime prevention should be left to state and local governments.

A central provision of the bill is that the programs getting funding must be replicated from programs that have been proven to work.

“These programs almost always fail when replicated in other jurisdictions,” Muhlhausen said.

Rick Velasquez, executive director of Youth Outreach Services in Chicago, said his nonprofit has seen revenues decline by about 15 percent and he’s had to cut 15 workers from the payroll. He has encouraged one of his senators to support the Youth Promise Act.

“It is a piece of legislation that will help us,” said Velasquez, whose group provides counseling to at-risk young people. “We have to seriously reinvest in our young people and this one of the mechanisms to do that.”

At Homeboy Industries, Boyle employs former gang members to work in the center’s bakery, restaurant or T-shirt press. However, workers in these businesses were largely insulated from recent cuts.

Most of those laid off were getting paid simply to attend training and carry out maintenance and administrative work at the center’s downtown headquarters.

For many, it was the only place hiring.

“I never got a call back,” said former gang member Robert Trejo, reflecting on his dozens of attempts to get hired elsewhere.

He was fired as a receptionist in May. After applying without success to 50 jobs, the 23-year-old father of three was left wondering if he had any choice but to return to the street.

“I think I will probably go back to the life, it’s the only thing I know,” Trejo said. “It’s so easy making money. I can make $15-$500 in an hour or two (selling drugs) or robbing.”

Trejo was eventually rehired, thanks to a flurry of donations after Boyle carried out a publicity blitz, but how many workers Homeboy can hire back without the Youth Promise money remains in question.

“We can’t just rail at the fact that they are in a gang,” Boyle said. “We have to also offer them an opportunity to get off this crazy freeway, and that is the part the Youth Promise Act hopes to put out there.”

RELATED STORIES

L.A. To Train Anti-Gang Workers In New Academy

Homeboy Industries Creates Green Jobs For Ex-Cons

Start Gallery