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Barack Obama Could Have Saved Trayvon Martin

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By Walt Ughes. When the President famously said in the heat of a presidential election “If I had son, he’d look like Trayvon,” he ironically spoke a truth greater than he knew. I assume Obama was talking about the photo of the young, smiling Trayvon that was shamelessly displayed on every major media outlet and on activists tee shirts, not the actually 17 year old troubled youth expelled twice from school with the raised middle finger. Both pictures of Trayvon were taken during Mr. Obama’s Presidency. The lad went from smiley youth to self-described angry “gangsta” on your watch, Mr. President. Mr. First Black President, both versions of Trayvon were your sons and you failed them.

Regardless of your political persuasion, it is a sign of the greatness of this country that black Americans could go from Selma to the White House in part of one lifetime. All Americans should have be proud of that achievement particularly given that the black man ran on an inclusive platform of “Hope and Change,” uplifting ideals if also very fuzzy. Martin Luther King would have been proud.

Much progress has been made since Selma, but not everything “progressive” is good. To say the black family is in crisis is a huge understatement when over 70% of black children are born to single mothers. The education inner city minorities receive is a scandal. Even those few who graduate get a substandard education that leaves them increasingly unqualified in a high tech world. Black teen unemployment is twice white rates. Welfare dependency is a multigenerational problem with young black males incarceration rates astronomically high. Half of all murders are committed by blacks and almost all blacks are killed by other blacks. The black inner city is an urban war zone with wasted lives and destroyed dreams

The black family is imploding and there has never had a greater need for a black voice of authority and reason. Barack Obama, elected as America’s first Black President (or White Black President as the New York Times might say), was uniquely qualified to deliver that message. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APPresident Obama keeps quiet on race — again

By Edward-Isaac Dovere. America’s been waiting five years to hear more from President Barack Obama on race.

The waiting continues.

Trayvon Martin is dead and George Zimmerman was found not guilty — leaving many looking to the president to lead the thoughtful, national conversation about black-white relations they thought was promised in his 2008 campaign speech on race.

Yes, there’s a double standard. No previous president has been asked so often for his personal feelings on race. But for the first black president, that double standard is part of his life, and of his presidency. And black leaders say that, especially after last year’s election, the time has come to deliver more than what he has so far.

“The president is now in his second term. Because of the Voting Rights Act and the Trayvon Martin case” and the disproportionately greater impact on the black community from the recession, said National Urban League President Marc Morial, “I think that the table is set for the president to think about how he can address these issues not just in words, but renew some of the issues that he’s championed.” Read more from this story HERE.

Controversial Statements from Obama’s Choice for UN Ambassador (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty ImagesAs the Senate prepares for confirmation hearings Wednesday to decide whether Samantha Power will be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, there are some controversial criticisms of America from her past that may be called into question.

Power, a former journalist turned political activist, once connected some of the tactics in the U.S. war on terror to French military support for the Hutu militia, which killed 800,000 people in the Rwandan genocide. She also has called Americans “stingy on foreign aid,” declared that the U.S. should apologize for slavery, and even made indirect references comparing U.S. involvement in the world to that of Nazi Germany.

At a 2002 discussion of her book at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Power questioned the U.S. cooperation with other countries in the war on terror, saying “we’re about to partner with regimes that if they’re not committing genocide they are certainly committing systematic atrocities against their people.”

Power has already come under fire for a New Republic article in which she called for Americans to follow the lead of German leaders post-Holocaust and apologize for their war crimes:

“U.S. foreign policy has to be rethought. It needs not tweaking but overhauling. We need: a historical reckoning with crimes committed, sponsored, or permitted by the United States. This would entail restoring FOIA to its pre- Bush stature, opening the files, and acknowledging the force of a mantra we have spent the last decade promoting in Guatemala, South Africa, and Yugoslavia: A country has to look back before it can move forward. Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility by showing that American decision-makers do not endorse the sins of their predecessors. When Willie Brandt went down on one knee in the Warsaw ghetto, his gesture was gratifying to World War II survivors, but it was also ennobling and cathartic for Germany.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Hispanic Networks Granted Exclusive Interviews With Obama But Fail to Ask Even One Question About Zimmerman

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Photo Credit: qnrLeading Hispanic television networks Univision and Telemundo were granted two interviews apiece with President Obama today, but not one interviewer asked the president a question about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, according to transcripts and sources familiar with the interviews.

The four interviews were intended to focus on immigration reform, but the absence of any inquiry related to the high-profile court case surprised even the White House…

Television industry executives also expressed surprise: “It’s unbelievable that any journalist with access to the President this week wouldn’t ask the first African-American president about his reaction to the verdict,” said one D.C.-based executive.

Instead, the interviewers focused on immigration reform, giving President Obama the opportunity to tout the economic benefits of reform and to criticize House Republicans for opposing the immigration bill on political grounds.

Read more from this story HERE.

PBS’s Tavis Smiley: Our Babies are being Shot Dead in the Street, What’s the Use of having a Black President? (+video)

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Tavis Smiley is furious that President Obama has not done more to combat racism in America, and that anger was on full display Monday night. On his self-titled PBS program, Smiley unleashed a pair of long-winded leftist rants barely disguised as questions to his guest, Dr. Tricia Rose from Brown University.

Rose, who directs Brown’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, had suggested that Obama was incapable of ending structural racism in America by himself. Hearing that, Smiley erupted: “[I]f you’re right about this, then what the heck is the value of us celebrating a black president?”

Apparently Smiley had rather high hopes when President Obama was elected. He continued:

“But all of this hoopla about his being the first black president, if it doesn’t redound to you in some meaningful way when your back is to the wall and your babies are being shot dead in the streets, if it doesn’t redound to you in some meaningful way at that point… what is the value of having a black president?”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Sneaks a Nicorette During White House Ceremony

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Photo Credit: @Guy261492President Obama casually inserted a piece of Nicorette gum into the First Mouth Monday afternoon.

Obama has a well-documented history of using gum control to stave off his smoking urges, but it’s rare to catch the president getting his nicotine fix in public.

Ever-conscious of the many cameras that capture his every move, Obama waited for just the right moment — during an event honoring former President George H.W. Bush — when it seemed likely that no network in the world would be focusing on the current president.

Fortunately, the eagle-eyed producers at the Fox News Channel transitioned to a presidential split-screen at that very moment.

In a mere instant, the president exhibited the requisite sleight of hand of a world class Nicorette consumer.

Read more from this story HERE.

Repealing the First Amendment: Just Way Too Easy (+video)

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Photo Credit: euthmanActivist and author Mark Dice in the past has convinced people to sign a petition to increase the rate of inflation and tried to sell a $1,000 gold coin for $5 to America’s unsuspecting, and apparently sometimes unthinking, public.

This time he’s convincing them, most quite easily, to sign a petition to repeal the First Amendment…

“If you’re disagreeing President Obama, you’re obviously a racist of some kind,” he spouts. “So we’re going to repeal their First Amendment”…

“This will repeal the First Amendment so that those rightwingers can’t say hateful things about Obama”…

When he tells one signer, “Thank you for helping to support repealing the First Amendment,” the signer says, “No worries man. Have a good one.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Military Ignorance in Full Display: Unlawful Command Influence Taints Numerous DoD Trials

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Photo Credit: Doug MillsWhen President Obama proclaimed that those who commit sexual assault in the military should be “prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged,” it had an effect he did not intend: muddying legal cases across the country.

In at least a dozen sexual assault cases since the president’s remarks at the White House in May, judges and defense lawyers have said that Mr. Obama’s words as commander in chief amounted to “unlawful command influence,” tainting trials as a result. Military law experts said that those cases were only the beginning and that the president’s remarks were certain to complicate almost all prosecutions for sexual assault.

“Unlawful command influence” refers to actions of commanders that could be interpreted by jurors as an attempt to influence a court-martial, in effect ordering a specific outcome. Mr. Obama, as commander in chief of the armed forces, is considered the most powerful person to wield such influence.

The president’s remarks might have seemed innocuous to civilians, but military law experts say defense lawyers will seize on the president’s call for an automatic dishonorable discharge, the most severe discharge available in a court-martial, arguing that his words will affect their cases.

“His remarks were more specific than I’ve ever heard a commander in chief get,” said Thomas J. Romig, a former judge advocate general of the Army and the dean of the Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kan. “When the commander in chief says they will be dishonorably discharged, that’s a pretty specific message. Every military defense counsel will make a motion about this.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Michael McConnell: Obama Suspends the Rule of Law

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Photo Credit: David G. KleinPresident Obama’s decision last week to suspend the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act may be welcome relief to businesses affected by this provision, but it raises grave concerns about his understanding of the role of the executive in our system of government.

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so.

This matter—the limits of executive power—has deep historical roots. During the period of royal absolutism, English monarchs asserted a right to dispense with parliamentary statutes they disliked. King James II’s use of the prerogative was a key grievance that lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The very first provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689—the most important precursor to the U.S. Constitution—declared that “the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal.”

To make sure that American presidents could not resurrect a similar prerogative, the Framers of the Constitution made the faithful enforcement of the law a constitutional duty.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the president on legal and constitutional issues, has repeatedly opined that the president may decline to enforce laws he believes are unconstitutional. But these opinions have always insisted that the president has no authority, as one such memo put it in 1990, to “refuse to enforce a statute he opposes for policy reasons.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Netanyahu to Obama: Attack Iran or We Will

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Photo Credit: Yonatan SindelPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly to launch a new, last-ditch effort in the next few days to persuade the United States to credibly revive the military option against Iran.

If this proves unsuccessful, Channel 2 reported, Netanyahu will have to decide whether to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by this winter at latest, because after that, the report indicated, the assessment is that Israel’s window for military intervention will close.

Israel desperately wants to see the Obama Administration harden its position on Iran immediately — to convey to Iran that if it does not halt its nuclear program, its regime will not survive. Instead, however, Jerusalem sees what it considers an overly tolerant and patient attitude by Washington DC to Tehran, the Channel 2 report said.

Next week, the P5+1 powers — the five UN Security Council members, plus Germany — are set to meet to coordinate positions ahead of possible talks with incoming Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s leadership. The fear in Jerusalem, the TV report said, is that Iran will prove capable of buying more time in such talks, while its centrifuges spin, its other nuclear facilities move forward, and it becomes too late for effective military intervention.

Read more from this story HERE.

Political Activism Causes Obama’s Spiritual Adviser to Lose 10 Percent of His Congregation

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama’s spiritual adviser, Joel Hunter, may be losing his footing in conservative evangelical circles where he was once supported. His continued connection to the commander in chief, despite major social and political rifts, may be a driving reason for the loss of support that Hunter, 65, is experiencing.

Most recently, it was reported that the preacher has paid the price for his move away from conservative politics: His house of worship, Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., has lost an estimated 10 percent of its congregants.

Looking back at Hunter’s history, it may be understandable why his more moderate stances and his work with Obama would create some angst among more conservative church members.

…Christianity Today reported about his overt and official severance from the GOP. The reason, Hunter claimed, was an uneasiness he felt about identifying with any particular political Party, which often leads to partisanship and fosters division. After four decades as a Republican, he decidedly left the party; interestingly, this unfolded after he began advising Obama.

Since his decision to become one of the primary religious voices for the Obama White House, Hunter has been listed as one of Orlando Magazine’s “50 Most Powerful” citizens for three consecutive years (2009 to 2011). His escalating public influence has landed him appearances on shows like CBS’ “The Early Show,” PBS’ “Religion & Ethics” and CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” And parishioners have taken notice…His shift from right to center-right has led some to believe that Hunter is too willing to compromise his beliefs and succumb to a spirit of tolerance and passivism.

Read more from this story HERE.