Common Misses Fatal Shooting by Hours
Chicago rapper Common just missed a fatal shooting in Brooklyn, New York on Monday (October 27), that left one man dead and four others injured. According to a report from AllHipHop.com, the rapper had received a hair cut just hours before the murder, a place he is a regularly frequents when in need of a cut. During Monday afternoon, two gunmen reportedly opened fire on a 19-year-old male near the intersection of 704 Fulton Street and South Oxford Street in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. The man fled into a nearby hair salon, was cornered and killed by the suspects. In a barrage of nearly 30 shots, four innocent bystanders in the shop were hit including an off duty police officer. (Continue Reading…)

Hudson Suspect Could Have Had Parole Revoked
Busted for what police said was a rock of cocaine on the driver’s seat of his car, William Balfour could have been spending the past few months behind bars for a parole violation. The 27-year-old felon was instead allowed to remain free and is now considered a suspect in the deaths of Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew. On the day the victims were fatally shot and the young boy went missing, Balfour told his parole agent he had missed a meeting because he was baby-sitting, records show. By midnight, investigators involved in a frantic search for 7-year-old Julian King had contacted parole officials and requested emergency addresses, visitor lists, telephone numbers and “anything further” connected to Balfour, according to documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. (Continue Reading…)

Detroit’s Ex-Mayor Kilpatrick Jailed for 4 Months
A judge sentenced former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to four months in jail Tuesday for a sex-and-text scandal, calling him “arrogant and defiant” and questioning the sincerity of a guilty plea that ended his career at City Hall. Kilpatrick declined to speak in court, but his lawyers urged the judge to look at his entire career, not just the crimes that threw local government into disarray for months. The punishment was part of a plea agreement worked out last month. Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner followed that deal but said Kilpatrick would not get time off for good behavior, potentially up to 20 days in this case. “When someone gets 120 days in jail, they should get 120 days in jail,” Groner said. (Continue Reading…)

Barack Obama told an Iowa audience Friday that his wife Michelle thinks he should not run for president again if he loses in 2008. “One of the things I offer in this race is that we still remember what it means to be normal,” said the Illinois senator.

“My wife and I were talking the other day. And she said ‘We’re not doing this again’. And those of you who met her know she doesn’t mince words,” said Obama. “She meant that in eight years, I’m not sure we’ll be the same people we are now.” He said that he and his wife had only recently finished paying off their own student loans and started saving for their kids’ college education. He also said that, until recently, he would do the family’s grocery shopping himself. He said Michele told him, “eight years from now we will have lost touch with what ordinary Americans are going through” and that “we’ll be in a different orbit.”

“I think when you’re in Washington for a long time you lose touch” and “it becomes harder to relinquish power,” he added. But he told the audience in this blue-collar town, “my wife still shops at Target.” In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Michelle Obama tells a reporter that when it comes to her husband’s White House bid, “it’s now or never.”

“We’re not going to keep running and running and running, because at some point you do get the life beaten out of you. It hasn’t been beaten out of us yet,” she tells the magazine. “We need to be in there now, while we’re still fresh and open and fearless and bold. You lose some of that over time. Barack is not cautious yet; he’s ready to change the world, and we need that.”

Obama was responding to question from an undecided voter on executive power, and whether the senator would be willing to relinquish some of the power that President Bush has accrued.

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A day after former B2K manager Chris Stokes vehemently denied allegations that he sexually molested former members of the boy band while serving as their manager, his accuser, former B2K member DeMario “Raz-B” Thornton, has apologized. In a 30-second video posted on YouTube on Wednesday, Thornton stands outside on a city street and recants the sordid accusations he and older brother Ricardo “Ricky Romantic” Thornton had made in a pair of videos that circulated over the weekend.

“This is DeMario Thornton, publicly known as Raz-B of B2K,” a solemn-looking Thornton tells the camera in the video, called “The Truth About Chris Stokes B2K Part 3.” “I would like to send a public apology for some tapes that were leaked without my authority. I just want to say that those allegations are not true … with Chris Stokes and Marques Houston, and I apologize for any hurt this may have caused publicly [or] financially.”

Stokes reacted to the new video in a statement released Thursday (December 27) morning. “I’m happy that DeMario ‘Raz-B’ Thornton and Ricardo Thornton realized their mistakes and admitted to lying,” he said. “I have always supported my family and have always been a stand-up person. I knew that the truth would eventually come to light.”

Thornton’s abrupt turn-around came just hours after Stokes told MTV News that the allegations were false. His denials were seconded by another former B2K member, Omarion.

“I’m not gay. And I’m married. And I have four kids. I been with my wife for 16 years,” Stokes told MTV in an exclusive interview. “And I’m not a child molester. So those are all false allegations. I’m gonna sue them. And I owe that to my wife and kids, period. It’s ridiculous.”

[Source: MTV]

Republican candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination expressed support this evening for the federal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law which bans openly lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel from the armed forces. The candidates were queried on the topic by retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr, CSMR (Ret.), a member of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s (SLDN) military advisory council who ‘came out’ in 2003 and identified as a Republican voter. General Kerr served for 43 years in the military, including as Commanding General of the Northern Area Command of the California State Military Reserve. His question was part of this evening’s CNN/YouTube debate of Republican presidential contenders.

“I want to know why you think that American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians,” General Kerr asked the candidates.

“Most Americans [who enter the military] are conservative and have conservative values … and to force those people to work in a small, tight unit with someone openly homosexual and goes against their principles is a disservice,” Congressman Duncan Hunter (D-CA) said in response. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) also endorsed maintaining the law, saying that “… leaders almost unanimously tell me that the present policy is working.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee told Kerr that, “People have a right to whatever feelings and attitudes they wish, but when conduct puts cohesion at risk, I think that is what is at issue. That is why we have the policy we have right now.” Former Governor Mitt Romney, who acknowledged supporting open service early in his career, told the General he now opposes that idea, saying that the law “has been there for 15 years and it seems to be working.” Romney added that he would listen to the counsel of military leaders in the future and “listen to what they have to say.”

In response to the candidates, General Kerr noted that he did not believe they addressed his initial question, saying that, “Every day the Department of Defense discharges two people, not for misconduct or issues of cohesion, but simply because they happen to be gay.”

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of SLDN, pointed to growing support among Republican voters, and some GOP lawmakers, for repealing the law. “Republicans and Democrats alike should be able to agree that our national security and military readiness are not partisan political matters,” Sarvis said. “Republican voters increasingly understand that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ deprives our armed forces of the talent and skills of patriotic Americans who have important contributions to make to our national defense. Those voters want leaders who will reach across party lines and build consensus to repeal this law.”

A March 2006 Pew Research Poll found that 62% of self-identified moderate Republicans support open service. A May 2005 Boston Globe poll also found that “Large majorities of Republicans, regular church-goers and even those with negative attitudes toward gays think gays and lesbian should be able to serve openly in the military.”

Republican Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has also questioned the law, telling Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen that she “recently met with a retired admiral in Maine who urged me to urge you to reexamine the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.” Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming has also endorsed repealing the law.

“Despite the statements by candidates this evening, a growing majority of Americans in both parties want ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repealed,” said Sarvis. “Lawmakers should follow the public’s lead and lift this ban.”

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is a national, non-profit legal services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and related forms of intolerance. For more information, visit www.sldn.org.

[Source: Reuters & Miami Herald]

(CBS/AP) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up endorsements from dozens of black ministers Tuesday in South Carolina, an early voting state where she and rival Barack Obama have been courting the critical black vote.

The clergy were drawn to the New York senator for her views on health care, jobs and other issues, said a state representative who helped organize the endorsements. “They felt this was the best candidate addressing their concerns,” said state Rep. Harold Mitchell, a Democrat from this northern part of the state. Nearly half of South Carolina’s Democratic primary voters are black, and ministers can play a huge role in shaping the political direction of their congregations. More than 60 ministers gathered with Clinton on a stage at a hotel and her campaign said 88 were in the room where the endorsements were announced.

Clinton, in a wide-ranging speech to a crowd of more than 450, touched on her plans to expand health care, better public education and improve the image of the U.S. She said she would send emissaries around the globe - and mentioned former Secretary of State Colin Powell as “someone I know very well” - to send a message the era of “cowboy diplomacy is over.”

“I understand we’ve got to take on health insurance companies and the drug companies,” she said. “Don’t you think it is time for us to do that?” The Rev. Timothy Brown, of Cleveland Chapel in Spartanburg, said Clinton will get government to a “better plateau.” He also referenced Obama, a first-term senator who wrote a book called “The Audacity of Hope.” “We need to look for a leader that is ready to lead right now,” Brown said. “We don’t need to be filling our heads with hopes and dreams.”

Also Tuesday, Clinton’s campaign released her proposal to combat the spread of HIV and AIDS, which in part focuses on fighting the spread of the illness in minority communities. Clinton would double the HIV/AIDS research budget at the National Institutes of Health to $5.2 billion annually and spend at least $50 billion within five years around the globe, according to an e-mail from her campaign.

Clinton did not focus on the proposal in her first two of three appearances in South Carolina. In Aiken, she was asked by one man about whether gays should be able to openly serve in the military. “I don’t believe ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ worked,” she said.

The endorsements from the South Carolina ministers came as Clinton tries to widen what one recent poll showed was as much as a 10 percentage point lead in the state over Obama, an Illinois senator. “This is just the beginning,” said state Sen. Darrell Jackson, a Columbia minister working for Clinton. Similar announcements are in the works in other regions of the state, he said.

Another state senator, Harold Mitchell, told CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod that his heart had him backing Obama early on, but he switched to Clinton last month. “We’ve got to get away from these emotional feelings,” Mitchell said. “If you put that aside and look at the candidates… it’s a no-brainer.” Obama has pulpit endorsements of his own. He’s visited churches in the state and his campaign has organized forums on faith at churches and community centers. It also sponsored a recent gospel music tour.

In October, Obama stood in front of the pulpit of a Greenville church and told a mostly full, 4,200 seat sanctuary that faith was everything to him. “It’s what keeps me grounded. It’s what keeps my eyes set on the greatest of heights,” he said. Clinton’s husband remains popular with blacks in South Carolina, and the former president apparently helped get the support that was announced Tuesday during a visit to the state last month.

Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, said courting the pulpit is key for the black vote here. “The church and individual members play an extremely important role in black politics,” Fowlers said in an interview last month. “There’s very stiff, intense competition for the hearts and minds of the African-American clergy,” he said. “Collectively, they have huge influence.”

Obama’s campaign said it has held forums educating people about his faith across the state and recruited 180 volunteers who are organizers in their “faith communities.” “Senator Obama is proud of the tremendous support he has from South Carolina congregations and ministers. The successful Obama Faith Forums have allowed us to capture enthusiasm among voters who are interested in how Obama’s faith impacts his vision to transform our nation and have a positive impact on issues like healthcare, poverty and education,” the campaign said in a statement.

[Source: CBS/AP]

By Carol Costello WASHINGTON (CNN) — Does a good role model talk about using illegal drugs? Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama started the debate when he admitted to a high school audience in New Hampshire that he had experimented with drugs while he was in high school. “There were times when I got into drinking, experimenting with drugs. There was a stretch of time where I did not really apply myself,” Obama said. He added that when he left for college he realized he wasted a lot of time using drugs. “It’s not something I’m proud of,” Obama said. “It was a mistake as a young man.”

What a change from Bill Clinton’s 1992 admission that he had smoked marijuana a time or two and didn’t like it. “And I didn’t inhale and didn’t try it again.” “I never understood that line,” Obama said, who said he did inhale marijuana when asked by a student. “The point was to inhale. That was the point.” Clinton’s admission has become a cultural joke. Obama’s comments? If you ask Republican rival Mitt Romney, Obama’s comments were too honest.

“I think in order to leave the best possible example for our kids, we’re probably wisest not to talk about our own indiscretions in great detail,” Romney said. Romney isn’t alone in that belief. When George W. Bush was governor of Texas in 1999, he talked briefly about his use of alcohol, but refused to talk about other drugs because he feared kids might think what he did was “cool.”

Bush said at the time, “It is irrelevant what I did 20 or 30 years ago. What’s relevant is that I have learned from the mistakes that I made.” So what’s a role model to do? Should he be discreet or open about past indiscretions? According to Steve Pasierb, president of Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Obama is right on the money. Pasierb says kids are not naive; they know people in high places have experimented with drugs.

“The key is to be honest and to put it the context of saying I did this and it was a dumb choice,” Pasierb said. “Obama talked about how it wasn’t the right thing to do. When he got serious about his life, he left it behind. If he were to lie, I think most kids would know.”

Pasierb says the worst thing to do is feed kids a story they’re not likely to believe. In other words, never tell them that you tried it, but didn’t inhale. “Most kids are going to see right through that and will ask themselves, ‘How could you know if you didn’t like it if you didn’t inhale?’” Pasierb said. “Clearly not recognizing something when you did it is probably not the best course.”

Pasierb says role models and parents should not be afraid to admit they did the deed. “Really the truth works best. You owe your kids honesty,” he said. “But you don’t need to tell them every little detail. You don’t have to give them blow by blow.” Is talking about past drug use the best thing for a someone running for president? That’s a question much harder to answer.

According to a 2007 Pew Research poll, 45 percent of Americans would be less likely to support a candidate for president who had used drugs. Obama has to hope his honesty with kids translates in a good way to the adults deciding whether to vote for him.

[Source: CNN]

AUDUBON, IA – Obama can’t seem to escape the smoke of his youthful indiscretions wafting after him on the campaign trail. Just four days after he told a group of high school students that he had experimented with drugs in high school, Obama had to admit to it again at a town hall here.

When a voter asked Obama if he was for the legalization of medical marijuana, Obama said that he wasn’t in favor of legalization without scientific evidence and tight controls. Citing his mother who died from cancer young, Obama compared marijuana to morphine saying there was little difference between the two. “My attitude is if the science and the doctors suggest that the best palliative care and the way to relieve pain and suffering is medical marijuana then that’s something I’m open to because there’s no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief from pain,” Obama said. “But I want to do it under strict guidelines. I want it prescribed in the same way that other painkillers or palliative drugs are prescribed.”

But he added that he was concerned that the reasons for the use of marijuana would grow and create a “slippery slope.” “I was feeling really tense, so I needed a joint,” Obama joked with the crowd of those who might try and undermine that type of system. The question was followed up by another voter asking him, “Unlike other presidents, did you inhale?”

“I did,” Obama said to loud applause and laughter. “It’s not something that I’m proud of. It was a mistake … But you know, I’m not going to. I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point.”

[Source: MSNBC]

By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama laid out a plan Tuesday to spend $18 billion on early childhood education, dropout prevention and teacher incentives. His plan also touches on a hot-button pay issue on which he differs with education unions. Like the other Democratic candidates, Obama wants to change the 2002 No Child Left Behind education law, which ties federal funding to student results on standardized tests.

He would end standardized tests in favor of more complicated assessments, fund early childhood programs, give teachers bonuses for working in high-needs schools, and fund schools that experiment with longer school days or school years. “We’ve got to have a fuller and ultimately … more accurate way of assessing what’s going on in the classroom. The main goal of testing should not be to reward or punish,” Obama said in an interview Tuesday.

Among the Democratic hopefuls, only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would abolish the No Child law. “I would not scrap the idea of having standards that we want schools to achieve,” Obama said. In a speech in New Hampshire laying out the plan, Obama criticized Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards for not voting in 2003 to make the law unenforceable without full federal funding. “I believe that was a serious mistake.”

The Edwards and Clinton camps in turn criticized Obama for voting, as an Illinois state senator, to implement the education law. Campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Obama voted yes to get “what little federal money was available.” On teacher pay, Obama said he supports programs such as one in Denver, where a voluntary merit pay program is based in part on hitting student achievement goals. “Those are the kinds of experiments … that are worth pursuing,” Obama said. “What we should not do is to have teachers either rewarded or punished based solely on the performance on a standardized test.”

Obama said the same thing to the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union, in July. The union opposes merit pay for student test results, but Obama’s support of the Denver program didn’t alarm NEA President Reg Weaver.

“He’s not talking about tying (pay) to test scores, and he does not call for it to be a federally mandated program, and I don’t think any of the other candidates are doing that either,” Weaver said Tuesday. The NEA will endorse a candidate before the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3, he said. Clinton has won the support of the American Federation of Teachers. Clinton said Monday in Iowa that merit pay for teachers “could be demeaning and discouraging.” She favors giving more money to high-performing schools, which can then reward teachers. Edwards also has said he opposes merit pay based on test scores.

To pay for his education program, Obama would eliminate tax-deductibility of CEO pay by corporations and delay NASA’s program to return to the moon and then journey to Mars. “We’re not going to have the engineers and the scientists to continue space exploration if we don’t have kids who are able to read, write and compute,” Obama said.

Obama has focused lately on education: Monday in Iowa, he proposed a tax credit to cover the cost of community college and in a TV ad running in New Hampshire he says, “We need parents to turn off the television and instill in our children a sense of excellence.”

The question is whether his education plan will help him in New Hampshire, where a CNN/WMUR-TV poll shows Clinton’s lead narrowing, or in Iowa, where Obama is in a statistical tie with Clinton and Edwards, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll. The federal No Child law “is a powerful issue for New Hampshire voters,” said Dante Scala of the University of New Hampshire, though “it’s dwarfed” by President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and other foreign policy. Obama may not have set himself apart from other Democrats on education, Scala says.

“When push comes to shove, it’s hard to say he has a distinctive set of policy positions from the other candidates,” Scala said. “Voters find it hard to discern the differences, so they go back to personality and electability.”

[Source: USA Today]

[Photo Credit: By Mario Tama, Getty Images ]

(AP) Former President Clinton said Thursday that he is to blame for his administration’s failed health care plan, not his wife, who spearheaded the effort. Clinton was asked about the plan during a campaign event, where he spoke to about 600 people crowded into a YMCA gymnasium. The health care effort was led by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, now a New York senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“She has taken the rap for some of the problems we had with health care the last time that were far more my fault than hers,” the former president said.

He said part of the problem was a lack of money to finance the health care expansion. Money could be available this time to pay for expanded health care, such as the universal health care plan Hillary Clinton has proposed. “This time, when you let the tax cuts for upper-income people expire, it’ll create a pool of money that wasn’t there last time,” Bill Clinton said. “We told her she had to get to universal coverage and there would be no new money. She had to figure out how to do it.”

Clinton added that his wife’s plan faced opposition in Congress, in part, because they had an attitude of “just say no to Bill Clinton.” When asked by a reporter about the former president’s comments, Sen. Barack Obama, a rival for the presidential nomination, said Hillary Clinton shouldn’t tout her experience and then not take responsibility for the failures.

“If part of your basis for experience is the work you did on health care, then presumably when it didn’t work out, that’s part of the experience as well,” Obama said during a brief stop outside a convenience store and gas station in Albia. “We’re focused on trying to deliver a message of the kind of president I would be and why I think I would be the best nominee for the Democratic Party,” Obama said. “My understanding is that President Clinton is not on the ballot.”

[Source: CBS]

With recent polling showing the Democratic presidential candidate catching up to the frontrunner in the early-voting state, Obama is pressing the case that he has the policy proposals and broad appeal to attract voters interested in change.

“There’s no doubt that we represent the kind of change Senator Clinton can’t deliver on. And part of it’s generational,” Obama told FOX News.” Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the ’60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done. And I think that’s what people hunger for.”

That approach appears to be paying off. A Zogby poll of 502 likely voters taken Tuesday showed Obama with 25 percent support, three points behind Clinton. The margin of error was 4.5 percent. By contrast, an American Research Group poll taken in Iowa between Oct. 26 and 29 of 600 likely voters put Clinton 10 points ahead of Obama, with 32 percent support. Clinton has lost footing in the polls ever since a debate last week in which she gave unclear answers on her position regarding a New York plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

While Obama’s campaign in Iowa kicked off with energetic support from younger voters, the Illinois senator said he now enjoys support from “all demographic groups.” “We have grassroots support. That’s the reason we’re statistically tied. We’ve got the best organization on the ground,” Obama said. “You can have all the establishment you want and all the Washington endorsements you want, but ultimately people are going to make a choice on who really cares about them and who has a track record for fighting for them.”

He added that voters are “tired of the tit for tat. They’re tired of divisive politics. What they want is somebody who can unify the country, push back against the special interests and stand up for what they really believe in.” On a three-day swing through southeastern Iowa, Obama has highlighted plans to give tax cuts to the middle class, reduce health care costs and strengthen retirement security, part of his so-called “American Dream” agenda.

According to his plan, Obama would offset payroll taxes for average Americans and remove taxes on Social Security for retirees now making less than $50,000 a year. He wants to provide tax cuts up to $1,000 for working families, expand the Family and Medical Leave Act, create a fund to prevent foreclosures, reform bankruptcy laws and enroll workers in portable retirement accounts.

In an indirect reference to Clinton, Obama told an audience Wednesday that his approach to lifting up the middle class isn’t based on politics as usual. “This is what we must do to reclaim the American dream. We know it won’t be easy. We’ll hear from the can’t-do, won’t-do, won’t-even-try crowd in Washington; the special interests and their lobbyists; the conventional thinking that says this country is just too divided to make progress. Well I’m not running for president to conform to this conventional thinking. I’m running to challenge it,” he said.

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