Gospel Artist Timothy Wright continues to recover in a Pennsylvania hospital from critical injuries suffered in a July 4 head-on collision with a drunk driver on Interstate 80 which claimed the lives of his wife, Betty, and 14-year old grandson D.J.
Jesse Jackson made an off-color comment about Barack Obama when eh thought his mic wasn't on, criticizing Obama for "Taking down to blacks," among other things. This prompted Jackson's son, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., to repudiate him, and Jackson himself apologized before most people even knew what he was apologizing for. as of this writing, Senator Obama had no comment, but I can't help but speculate about whether this was a legitimate gaffe (seems an odd blunder for a man of Jackson's pedigree), or if this was somehow orchestrated by the campaign for some reason.
Darfur The genocidal ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of The Sudan has been described as the worst humanitarian aid crisis on the planet. Estimates as high as 2.5 million people have been killed, raped, maimed and/or displaced by both Arab militias and Sudanese military forces. The International Criminal Court said Friday they planned to issue an indictment against Sudanese President Omar al Bashir alleging genocide. .200 gunmen on horseback and in SUV's ambushed a group of UN peacekeepers, killing seven. UN Peace-keepers have only recently been allowed inside the Darfur region of The Sudan. There are currently 9,000 UN peacekeepers patrolling a region the size of Texas. They are outmanned and outgunned, their deployment being not much more than a thinly-veiled publicity ploy by the Sudanese government bent on ethnic cleansing and lining their pockets with cash from China for their rich oil deposits. Despite lofty declarations by the president when he wanted to go into Iraq, there appear to be no current standards for preemptive U.S. intervention. The crisis in The Sudan continues unabated, with millions—with an "M"— killed, maimed, raped and tortured. I have never heard even one mention of this genocide from a black pulpit; the African American church showing complete indifference to this modern-day holocaust.
Bank Failure IndyMac Bancorp Inc. was seized by U.S. regulators after a run by depositors left the California mortgage lender short on cash.The regulator blamed U.S. Senator Charles Schumer for creating a ``liquidity crisis'' after a letter on June 26, in which he expressed concern that the bank may fail. IndyMac is the second biggest bank failure in history, and economists fear it may be just the first of man such bank failures caused by the mortgage industry meltdown.
Wednesday, Congress passed the 2008 Amendment of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The amendment will require FISA court permission to wiretap Americans who are overseas and prohibit the government from invoking war powers or other authorities to supersede surveillance rules. This will prevent President Bush and future presidents from doing what Bush has already done—violate the FISA by illegally wiretapping American citizens without warrants in the name of national security. During his terms the president has exponentially increased the scope, reach and powers of his office, breaking a multiplicity of laws and virtually eliminating constitutional guarantees of privacy and habeas corpus, all under the guise of national security. All of which was done virtually in pain sight while we, the American people (and, most especially, the black church) neither noticed nor cared that the president has been acting very much like a totalitarian dictator while breaking laws as he sees fit. The good news is the new amendment will sharply curtail the president's powers while defining their scope. The bad news is, the bill provides immunity to AT&T, Verizon and other U.S. telecommunications companies against 40 lawsuits alleging they violated customers' privacy rights, essentially changing the law after the fact to protect the telecoms—and, by extension, the president—from being charged with wrongdoing. The bill is a good idea, the immunity clause is simply more political evil. The FISA Amendment is being used as a political weapon against Senator Barack Obama, who has promised to sign the bill with the telecom immunity in place, which would damage him among his liberal base. By rights, he should vote no on the bill unless they strip out the immunity, but that would hurt Obama on the right, among conservatives, and would open the door for the McCain campaign to paint Obama as soft on terrorism. Needless to say, this very important legislation, and the president's undermining of the Constitution which prompted it, has never once been mentioned from a back pulpit in this city.
