FJM Blog

For Release: February 26, 2010
Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or (703) 568-4727 or e-mail dalmasi@nationalcenter.org or Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or jkent@nationalcenter.org

Washington, DC: The NAACP’s decision to bestow an Image Award on radical activist and former Obama Administration official Van Jones is drawing a stern rebuke from Mychal Massie, chairman of the Project 21 black leadership network.

“I understand that it’s their award and the NAACP can give it to whomever they want,” said Project 21’s Massie. “But an Image Award is supposed to be reserved for ‘outstanding achievement.’ Can they really justify Jones’ failed tenure in government and his continued wrong-headed views for such an honor? At this rate, I expect next year’s ceremony will honor Lil’ Wayne.”

Jones, a one-time self-avowed communist who was appointed the Obama Administration’s “green jobs” czar, left the White House in a storm of controversy in September 2009 after his radical beliefs (including past support of 9/11 conspiracy theories) and his vulgar comments about political opponents were reported in the media.

In a commentary justifying giving Jones an Image Award that posted on CNN.com, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous called Jones “an American treasure” who is “the most misunderstood man in America.”

Massie replied: “Contrary to what Jealous asserts, the real story pursuant to Van Jones is that not even the Obama White House could support his radicalism. They threw him under the bus late on a Saturday night.”

Jealous also wrote that Jones is “America’s champion for green jobs” and “Van is working to make sure that our country does not lose out to India, China or Germany in the green industrial race.”

“In this time of economic uncertainty, throwing our lot in with pipe dreams such as green jobs and cap-and-trade are suicide for the American worker,” noted Massie. “An analysis of Spain’s very aggressive green jobs program by Professor Gabriel Calzada of Madrid’s Juan Carlos University found that each green job created there came with a $774,000 price tag, destroyed 2.2 regular jobs in the process and still had only a ten percent chance of actually becoming permanent. The cap-and-trade emissions regulations the White House is still pursuing is estimated to destroy millions of jobs annually and dramatically reduce national and individual earnings. And this would be done unilaterally, guaranteeing America could not compete with India and China. Quite simply, the Jones agenda is economic suicide. This I understand.”

Brushing off Jones’ previous radicalism, Jealous justified the award by saying Americans “ultimately judge people on what they are doing today for tomorrow, not for what they did yesterday.” He cited the forgiveness of the late reformed segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace (D) and Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) for “having defended racist organizations.”

Massie responded: “Did Jealous forget that Byrd didn’t just defend racists but was a member and recruiter for the KKK? I also didn’t remember such forgiving attitudes toward Trent Lott, Don Imus and or conservative nominees to the Supreme Court in recent memory. This is all about the NAACP hitching its wagon to the political fringe and trying to make the best of what they must know in their hearts is a very bad thing.”

“There are black doctors, lawyers and captains of industry who are better suited to be held up as the best of black America,” said Project 21’s Massie. “Giving an Image Award to Van Jones is a disservice to the NAACP and to America.”

The NAACP Image Awards will be presented live on the Fox television network on February 26.

In 2004, Project 21 objected to the nomination of R. Kelly in the category of “outstanding album” at a time when he was facing charges of child pornography. The controversy led the NAACP to considering a morals clause for future nominees. Jones’ award is a special one separate from the entertainment-related process related to Kelly’s nomination.

Project 21, established in 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org), a non-profit foundation established in 1982 and funded primarily from the gifts of over 100,000 recent individual donors.

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By Ken Blackwell

Ronald Reagan used to say of the Soviets they liked the arms race a whole lot better when they were the only ones in it. The same could be said of Al Gore and Global Warming—oops, excuse me: Climate Change. Mr. Gore was very much happier to dash around the world in his water vapor-powered personal jet to preach the green gospel of environmentalism. He would tell us which truths were inconvenient. Any dissenters were shouted down as “deniers.” No Pope would ever make claims as far-reaching, as extravagant, as all-embracing as Saint Al did.

But now comes the pushback. Just before the World Summit on Climate Change at Copenhagen last December, several hundred emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were leaked. It appeared that Dr. Phil Jones had urged colleagues, including some at Penn State University, to “hide the decline” in world temperatures and encouraged others to do some of their usual “tricks” to get the right result from ambiguous data. A huge scandal erupted, instantly dubbed “ClimateGate.”

Jones stepped down as director of CRU and even went so far, he confessed to the Times of London, as to contemplate suicide. God forbid. Truly, these are serious questions and we have serious objections to what Dr. Jones and his colleagues were caught doing, but we want no one involved in this affair to become so despondent as to take his own life. Dr. Jones says his hope for his five-year old granddaughter is what helped him to banish thoughts of self-destruction. “I wanted to see her grow up.” Dr. Jones, I pray you will.

If Al Gore has not become any humbler, it’s at least good to see Dr. Jones somewhat chastened by the revelations that some of his data may not be as reliable as we have been led to believe. And it is not only the reading public that may have been misled. Dr. Jones’ CRU is one of the primary institutions responsible for feeding data to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It was this IPCC that shared with Al Gore the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. (Note: They did not win the Nobel Prize for Science.)

The Left is wringing its hands over the “failure” of the World Climate Summit at Copenhagen to approve a binding treaty. But perhaps they should thank God (or Gore) for that fact. That’s because the mere threat of job-killing Cap and Trade legislation has been enough for independent voters in the U.S. to abandon left-leaning politicians in droves.

Along with stiff carbon taxes and straight-jacket regulations comes, inevitably, population control. At Copenhagen, China’s Peggy Liu—chair of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy—bragged about Beijing’s brutal one-child policy. That policy, said this winner of Time Magazine’s “Hero of the Environment” award, “reduces energy demand and is arguably the most effective way the country can mitigate climate change.”

Soviet Communist Party boss Joe Stalin would be proud. “You have a problem with a man. If you get rid of the man, you get rid of the problem,” said the top Communist of the Twentieth Century. (Come to think of it, Uncle Joe Stalin even topped Peggy Liu. He was named Time’s Man of the Year not once, but twice—1939 and 1942.)

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times hails China’s one-child policy as “reasonably enlightened.” He likes the fact that Beijing’s rulers—unburdened by those pesky voters voting out their betters—can “impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in 21^st century.” Friedman’s best-selling book is titled The World is Flat.” (And liberals accuse us of being the Flat Earth Society?)

Isn’t it really funny how all the “errors” made by the climate scientists seem to fall on one side of the debate? If the glaciers of the Himalayas are all going to melt by 2035, that’s a real problem. But if they’re not expected to melt until 2350, it’s another matter. Guess which date the IPCC chose to publish? Just a typo?

What if the globe is indeed warming but the warming is part of a cyclical pattern of warming and cooling? That’s the thesis of Dr. S. Fred Singer. Dr. Singer and co-author Dennis Avery write in Unstoppable Global Warming that “evidence from North Atlantic deep-sea cores reveals that abrupt shifts punctuated what is conventionally thought to have been a relatively stable Holocene [interglacial] climate. During each of these episodes, cool, ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland were advected as far south as the latitude of Britain. At about the same times, the atmospheric circulation above Greenland changed abruptly….Together, they make up a series of climatic shifts with a cyclicity close to 1470 years (plus or minus 500 years). The Holocene events, therefore, appear to be the most recent manifestation of a pervasive millennial-scale climatic cycle operating independently of the glacial-interglacial climate state (emphasis added.)”

Dr. Singer has been abused by Left-wing bloggers, called a denier, and denounced as a tool of industry. He earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, worked with NASA for decades and is thoroughly conversant with satellite measurements of earth’s climate. And he taught Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for twenty-five years. Dr. Singer might be wrong. He might be seriously in error. But so far, no one has demonstrated that his arguments are wrong. Reviling him, calling him names, trying to shut him up and close him down—none of this is a reasoned argument. It is nothing more than—in the words of Al Gore—an assault on reason. Stay tuned, folks. The earth may be warming—but not as fast as the debate over climate is heating up.

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For Release: February 24, 2010
Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or project21@nationalcenter.org

As Black History Month draws to a close, the web site The Root has chosen to publish a hateful article that demeans black conservatives solely for their political views — grouping them with brutal dictators, convicted criminals and self-centered celebrities.  This has drawn a stinging rebuke from Project 21 member Bob Parks.

“It doesn’t take much for liberals to call black conservatives ’self-hating,’” noted Parks, “but what is it called when someone decides that blacks deemed inappropriate should be wholly removed from history?  What kind of egos are we talking about here?”

The Root is operated by The Washington Post.  Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. serves as The Root’s editor-in-chief.

In a recent posting, “Black Folks We’d Like to Remove From Black History” by Jada Smith, 21 blacks are singled out for being “embarrassing.” Smith wrote: “[W]hile we love our own, we sure do dream of erasing a few of them.”

“It’s not enough that progressives intentionally distort and rewrite black history to their political advantage, but now The Root, the Post and Professor Gates are showing additional contempt for black people by allowing open suggestions about who should be excluded from that rewritten history,” Parks pointed out.

Of the 21 blacks selected by Smith to purge from black memory, there are five American political figures, five infamous foreign dictators, two criminals and nine celebrities.  The two liberal politicos — current D.C. councilman and former mayor Marion Barry and former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon — earned their shame by being convicted of breaking the law.

The three black conservatives are demeaned solely for their politics.  Republican Party chairman Michael Steele is the “Bozo of politics.”  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas allegedly lacks “standing” among blacks because “he looks to the Constitution as ‘colorblind.’” Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, whose activism extols the values of the Declaration of Independence and the rights of the unborn, has “never managed to make a lick of sense.”

Project 21’s Parks added: “The Root meticulously nominated five political figures among narcissistic celebrities and murderous dictators.  The two liberals broke written laws, while the others were convicted of the crime of being black and conservative.  It’s ironic that the hyper-sensitive Professor Gates presided over this fantasy of removing certain onerous blacks from our history. Now that he’s got me riled up, I wonder if he and his bosses at the Washington Post will have me over for a beer to talk about their writer acting stupidly.”

Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by The National Center for Public Policy Research (www.nationalcenter.org).

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By Armstrong Williams

One quickly realizes the major philosophical and principle divide between liberals and conservatives when they painfully deconstruct and analyze their respective rhetoric. Conservatives and liberals are worlds apart in their ideology; an ideology that is now more than ever serving as the impetus for bold and endlessly complex legislation foisted on the already burdened American people. Conservative cling to the power of equality of opportunity and unfettered freedom; while liberals, on the other hand, are fearfully willing to sacrifice the hard earned dollars of honest Americans for the freedom of equal outcomes.

To illustrate the point, let’s examine some of the more recent contentious political issues to better test and illuminate this hypothesis.

Healthcare: The Left was willing to sacrifice individual freedom to choose doctors, opting instead to impose a state-run monopoly on medical care at the expense of a market driven health system. They unabashedly didn’t care that they were redistributing income from the more productive to the less productive; from the young to the old; from the healthy to the less healthy. In contrast, conservatives looked towards market solutions to resolve many of the existing health care issues, one that operated within a framework of the invisible hand of rational behaviors and the proper incentives. If cost is a factor in health care as liberals would argue, then why not ensure the solution has a price-based fixture?

Cap and Trade: Under the Democratic plan, income derived from a cap and trade scheme would be redistributed from productive carbon producing enterprises to non-carbon emitting enterprises. In effect, jobs would be lost, shifting from the USA to less responsible, emerging countries. Wealth would also shift from America to non- compliant nations; for what reason? Because of spotty, inconclusive scientific evidence that reduced carbon emissions would prevent global warming. Conservatives questioned that science. Not because they were Neanderthals. But when you ask the average American to pay $5 for a gallon of gas to save an iceberg in a remote part of the north he may never see when that same person is struggling to pay that month’s mortgage or he himself will be out in the cold, you better be damn sure of the consequences of “global warming.” Frankly, the Left failed in that argument.

Union Card Check: Democrats were willing to sacrifice the sanctity of a secret ballot to insure that Unions could fleece more American workers. With members (and clout) dissipating at record rates, it’s evident union bosses are feeling their grip on power lifting. It was easy to see this political exercise for what it was – a desperate bid to win at all costs, even if it meant cooking the ballot box at union halls. Here again, conservatives stood on an obvious side – the one for more freedom and more individualism.

McCain-Feingold: Democrats howled when the Supreme Court recently overturned corporate prohibitions in the landmark McCain-Feingold law. Here again, they’re willing to sacrifice the constitutionally-protected free speech of corporations and their shareholders. This has the long term effect of preventing this segment of society from spending their corporate dollars on political issues that are or are not in their best interest. The beauty of our First Amendment is captured best in its simplicity – when you abridge someone’s right to speak out for causes he/she believes in, no amount of demagoguing will cover that injustice.

In the real world, most Americans are neither completely liberal nor conservative in their overall views. Views and opinions change, based on one’s own station in life and through differing circumstances. That’s why we have laws, based on fundamental principles of what’s just. Because if left to the devices and whims of populists, so-called principled would change in an instant, and freedoms would suffer. That’s why conservatives look back to the Founders - they approached the building of this nation with the freshest of views - chief among them was the unfailing pursuit toward more, not less, freedom.

For the most part, Americans prefer their politicians this way as well. They would much rather have a President in the middle of the political spectrum, regardless of political affiliation, rather than have a polarizing dictator trying to sink their teeth into the free world. In fact, when policy is proposed, whether it has the appearance of being liberal or conservative, once it’s vetted through the rigor of intense partisan debate, it usually comes out somewhere along the middle of the political divide. When it comes to the personal lives of Americans it is important to realize that views and opinions continue changing as individuals move up the economic bracket, get an education, have a family and gain a matured perspective.

Our laws are continuously based on fundamental social philosophies of what elevates the quality of the society as a whole. After all, we do not only live for ourselves, but we are active members in a society of people in which dignity, respect and honor must be at the core of growing our great nation. However, with that being noted, the populous is an accurate gauge to feel the pulse of a nation that can only survive if the populous are in the middle class and don’t infest the lower strata of the economic stratosphere.

Conservatives will never be able to cogently persuade a true liberal who is more than willing to sacrifice his freedom and income (and yours) so that there is absolute perceived equality. Likewise, liberals will never persuade conservatives to sacrifice their individual freedom and hard earned wealth to be redistributed by bureaucrats and politicians in Washington, DC. For this reason alone, the Left and Right will never meet. It’s probably good that they don’t, for conflict is at the heart of democracy. I’m just glad I and my conservative colleagues are on the side of liberty!

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By Harry R. Jackson

Last week Sarah Palin appeared on Bill O’Reilley’s show discussing a crude joke levied at her on the animated television show - “The Family Guy.” For those who may not have seen either the show itself or the O’Reilly interview, here’s what happened.

In the animated show two Sundays ago, a teenaged character named Chris is romancing Ellen, his classmate. She has Down Syndrome. As Chris delves into Ellen’s background, she makes this statement, “My dad’s an accountant and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.” The fact that the actress who does the voice for Ellen, Andrea Fay Friedman, has Down Syndrome in real life complicates this story. In fact, Freidman attempted to make Palin the bad guy by saying that the former governor has no sense of humor.

In an e-mail statement sent to the New York Times Friedman went on to say, “I thought the line…was very funny. I think the word is sarcasm… My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.” Not a bad statement for an adult with Down Syndrome.

Friedman’s plausible defense of the program is obviously self-serving. Unfortunately, she reminds me of a black comedienne who uses the “N” word in her routine; but would picket any white person who did so.

Even more ironic than the fact the Down Syndrome actress wants to secure her career at all costs, is the fact that the program was aired on the Fox Family Network. The Fox News Network has hired Sarah Palin as a commentator, and is obviously very protective of the governor. This glitch shows that the Fox News Network operates independently from its entertainment branch.

Before I go forward with my comments, let’s take a moment to define Down Syndrome. The WebMD says that most kids with this condition have: “Distinct facial features, such as a flat face, small ears, slanting eyes, and a small mouth, a short neck and short arms and legs, weak muscles and loose joints though muscle tone usually improves by late childhood, and below-average intelligence.”

For my money, Bristol Palin gave the quintessential comment on the matter in a statement on her mother’s Facebook page. Bristol declared: “People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront … why could anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them? … If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed.”

As the national debate rages about the latest set of tasteless remarks about the former governor and her family, there is a shift in the tone and tenor of the criticism levied against her. The comments about her do not reflect a new level of political persecution; instead they reflect the fact that the ex-governor is starting to reach icon status. Cultural icons like Sarah Palin and Tiger Woods are famous because of who they are - not just because of what they do. Icons don’t just make the news; they are the news. Their fans dote and their detractors perseverate. They fight the harassment of the paparazzi and the gratuitous use of their names and images. Simply sighting an icon can be a life-defining event versus sighting the garden-variety celebrity.

A great example of how one rises from celebrity to iconic ranks is the meteoric ascent of Paris Hilton. Her family name brought her into the limelight and her “jet set” lifestyle made her the envy of everyone on the celebrity party scene a few years ago. Suddenly she stepped into the icon zone. Wikipedia defines her career as follows: “an American socialite, heiress, media personality, model, singer, author, fashion designer and actress.” This means that she has no permanent job other than being a celebrity.

Returning to the assertion that Sarah Palin has become an icon, let me quote Time Magazine, which said last week, “Palin hits the same mystic chords as Clinton. A woman who goes to war against the 19-year-old boy who knocked up her daughter and then posed for Playgirl is far more comprehensible to most Americans than deficit spending is. In her Fox interview with Chris Wallace the day after her Nashville speech, Palin said she’d been focusing more on ‘current events’ since she quit as governor of Alaska.”

Even her political allies are starting to weigh in on the love vs. hate Palin campaign. A prominent Tea Party leader from Texas (Dale Robertson) is warning that the movement “is becoming nothing more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party.” He goes on to slam Sarah Palin as being a part of “a growing insider’s attack to the heart of the Tea Party.”

Contrary to Mr. Robertson’s sentiments, countless newspapers and magazines are hailing Palin as the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement. If these writers are correct, her best selling book Going Rogue may become a manifesto. In addition, her commentaries on Fox may help focus and refine the insights of millions of followers.

Sarah, Plain and Tall is the title of a book and a trilogy of movies known by children everywhere. The award-winning book is a study of the universal themes of loneliness and abandonment. For months many Americans wondered if Governor Palin and her family could survive the rough and tumble atmosphere of modern American politics. Fortunately for Mrs. Palin, her epitaph will not be “Sarah Plain and Tall.” In fact her destiny is to become a culturally defining icon. She will undoubtedly become a role model of what a wife, mother, and citizen can be.

You go girl!!!!

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by B.B. Robinson, Ph.D.

Black History Month is an ideal time to measure progress.  This year is especially appropriate as we embark on a new decade.

Some indicators of progress are how blacks are catching up with their white counterparts with regard to income, education and political participation.  In the latter two categories, reports say blacks made marginal progress.  But we have not yet really progressed on equalizing incomes.

Some might argue this income disparity is of overwhelming importance and must be rectified immediately.  They may contend it directly affects education and other opportunities.

Our nation’s unfortunate history of discrimination has residual effects that remain today. There are also post-civil rights era problems related to entitlements that breed a reliance on government. We can acknowledge these problems, but we must not dwell on them.

To keep from spending the next 90 years debating reasons for this income disparity, let’s focus on what can be done to increase black earnings.  Solutions include encouraging more blacks to train in the financial, mathematical and scientific fields.  Entrepreneurship is also ideal - starting one’s own business to actually become the employer.

Classroom education alone is not sufficient to boost income levels.  There are too many blacks with doctoral degrees who lack jobs or have jobs that earn less than one might expect.  Put simply, their degrees are not in growing or lucrative fields.

Rather than focusing on great black scholars or heroes this Black History Month, why not focus more on black Americans who achieved financial success and how they did it? Think about BET founder Robert Johnson or the late venture capitalist Reginald Lewis.

Americans earning the most money do not necessarily have a multitude of advanced diplomas adorning their walls.  Instead, they are thinkers who bring about new wealth-generating ideas. They are go-getters with the drive and ambition who are willing to take the risks to get ahead.

This is not to say the most successful people aren’t educated.  They can have such degrees, but their smarts aren’t always obtained in school.

Think about how many university professors are very wealthy.  Not many.  What professors can do successfully is impart wisdom upon others.  They can school someone about becoming a doctor or a lawyer or to understand the world of business.  But what then?

It all comes down to how someone applies his talents.  Anyone can do virtually anything when given the proper training.

Oprah Winfrey, for example, was a television reporter who used her ambition and talents to become a media mogul.  She did not enter her profession with a Harvard MBA.

Black Americans must understand that anyone can do almost anything - from plumbing to nuclear physics.  There’s little holding most Americans back if they are given the proper training and have the ambition to succeed.

Again, it’s not always education as much as it is training.  Put a young mind that is willing to learn in the proper position, and that young mind will master the job.  We can’t be fooled that one must first obtain a advanced degree to be a success.

Those who know will tell you that, the first day on the job, even the newly-minted Ph.D. may be told by an experienced supervisor to “forget everything that you learned at the university.”

Black History Month should help to identify wealthy and successful black Americans.  People should learn how they became wealthy and commit themselves to replicating that model.

If we use self-study, mentoring and commit ourselves by supporting each other (especially black businesses), then we can certainly produce considerably more wealthy black Americans.  In turn, those wealthy blacks can help other blacks become wealthy because “anyone can do anything.

#  #  #

B.B. Robinson, Ph.D. is a member of the national advisory council of the black leadership network Project 21.  You can visit his website at www.blackeconomics.org.  Comments may be sent to Project21@nationalcenter.org.

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By Star Parker

Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10%, and well over 16% among blacks, doesn’t make for much of a festive mood.

But if the mood is not festive, shouldn’t it be reflective?

Certainly, there’s reason for pride in black achievement in the forty plus years since the Civil Rights movement. We’ve now got a couple black billionaires and a black president. The percentage of blacks with college degrees is three times greater now than in 1970.

But black household income is still just 62% of white households. And the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960’s.

Blacks should be asking hard questions when, over this period of time, many immigrants from different backgrounds have come to this country with little and moved into the middle class in one generation.

The accumulation of considerable black political power – black mayors, governors, a 42 member Black Congressional Caucus, and now a black president - has made hardly a difference. It should be clear that black economic distress is not a political problem.

Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background.

Now consider that in 1970, 62% of black women were married compared to 33% today. In 1970, 74% of black men were married, compared to 44% today.

Or that in 1970, 5% of black mothers were never married compared to 41% today.

The Civil Rights movement was, of course, a religiously inspired and led movement. It made liberal use of the biblical imagery of the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.

Taylor Branch called his trilogy about Dr. King and the movement he led “Parting of the Waters”, “Pillar of Fire”, and “At Canaan’s Edge.”

To the misfortune of blacks who put great hope in the redemptive powers of that movement, their leaders prematurely closed their bibles.

The story of the liberation of the Israelite slaves did not end with their release from their Egyptian taskmasters. That was the beginning. They then proceeded to the mountain in the wilderness to receive the law to take with them and live by in the Promised Land.

When it was clear that the former Egyptian slaves were not up to the task, they were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness so that a new generation would arise, enter the land, and build the nation.

Let’s recall that the law they received was about family (honor your parents), about property and ownership (thou shalt not steal), and about being concerned about building your own and not what your neighbor has (thou shalt not covet).

Rather than seeking redemption through this law, post-Civil Rights movement black leaders sought redemption in politics. The welfare state, entitlements, transfer payments, and the politics of differences and envy. Should we be surprised by the result?

The New York Times recently reported that from 2004 to 2008, the political and charitable arms of the Congressional Black Caucus raised more than $55 million from corporations and unions. According to the Times, most of these funds were “spent on elaborate conventions…a headquarters building, golf outings,…and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.”

More was spent on the caterer for the Caucus’s Foundation annual dinner - $700,000 – than it gave out in scholarships.

It’s now over forty years since the Civil Right movement. Enough wandering in the wilderness.

It’s time for a new generation of black Americans to step forward. A generation to turn to the truths that will rebuild black lives, black families, and lead blacks to the freedom that Dr. King and all blacks have dreamed about.

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By Ken Blackwell

The blogs have been having a lot of fun with Vice President Joe Biden’s latest gaffe. The veep claimed that the U.S. would be the world economic leader “throughout the twentieth century.” I guess that was a safe bet.

President Obama’s gaffes are less frequent than Biden’s gaffe-a-day act, but they are no less revealing. YouTube watchers have had a laugh at the Commander-in-Chief’s latest stumble. Speaking about the military, he referred to a medical corpsmen as a “corpse-man.” The President apparently was unfamiliar with the term. And no one on his staff thought to prep him with a phonetic key.

Small matter? Not really. It stands with his famous 52-second video from the 2008 campaign where he stumbled over the term “Quadrennial Defense Review.” Civilian policy makers who have responsibility for military matters are wholly conversant with the QDR, and the term trips off their lips. Then-Sen. Obama showed how unfamiliar he was with military issues not just by his verbal stumble. He said he would not “weaponize” space. He meant he would dismantle Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. But the Left’s slogan about not weaponizing space forgets the fact that the old Soviet Union weaponized space back in 1957 when it launched the first earth satellite, Sputnik. The U.S. submarine fleet is equipped with tens of thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles–all of which would travel through space to their targets if the President had to order a retaliatory attack. Let’s pray he never does. And let’s pray this President learns something about the U.S. military before a crisis hits.

President Obama’s plan to repeal “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” is a further example of his lack of knowledge of the military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pleaded before a Senate committee for a year to study and implement the Obama repeal of “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.” Among the practical questions Gates is going to have to answer are these:

1. Will the military be ordered to recruit gays by quota? All other sub-groups in our all-volunteer military are recruited by quota. Women, minorities, specialties like doctors and lawyers, all are subject to quotas. 2. If the answer to No. 1 is Yes, then what would the gay quota be? Would it be the widely discredited 10% figure that gay activists like Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings always cite? Or would it be the more realistic “less than 3% figure?” 3. If large numbers of those volunteers currently serving in our military don’t re-enlist, or if sufficient new recruits cannot be attracted to the Obama military, will this administration bring back the draft?

These are all very serious questions to which Sec. Gates must apply himself. He must do this even while he is trying to win the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once the Obama military has been formed, how will the new gay troops be housed? And what about the stress on military health care?

Already, this alternate lifestyle has created what the gay groups themselves refer to as a Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Do the American people want to bring this health crisis into the ranks of our volunteer military?

In his address to the gay lobby, President Obama spoke of extending the right to serve in the military to all groups, regardless of sexual orientation. There is no right to serve in the military. There has never been a right to serve in the military.

Of course it was wrong ever to restrict the military service of black Americans, but it was also the fact that black Americans had served in every one of our wars, and from the first days of our Navy. President Harry Truman’s Executive Order that did away with segregated units in the Army was promptly obeyed in 1948 and generously praised by Gen. Colin Powell fifty years later. But, as Gen. Powell said the last time the issue of recruiting gays by quota for the military was raised, sexual orientation is essentially different from the “benign characteristic” of skin color.

President Obama’s plans can cause a crisis of confidence in the military. This plan threatens unit cohesion at a time when the Ft. Hood shootings already demonstrate a major failure of leadership in the Army. Barack Obama is showing that his only real interest in the military is to use it as a platform for radical social engineering. That does not pass the test of leadership.

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By Emery McClendon

What’s going on in America?

Since his election, Barack Obama and his supporters have sought to move our nation leftward at breakneck speed.  In the process, they’ve exhibited a blatant disregard for our Constitution, traditions, military and the general rule of law.

Americans accepted it at first, but now their patience is wearing thin.

Young people are being indoctrinated in left-wing politics, personified by figures such as Mao and Bill Ayers - enemies of our nation’s founding principles nonetheless admired by members of the Obama Administration.

Those same people also appear bent on taking us further away from our traditional Judeo-Christian morals and values.

It’s shocking that a nation with more freedoms and liberties than most others could fall for such garbage.  What happened to the hearts and minds of so many Americans?  It’s clear there’s a battle for the soul of America being waged.

White House ranks are flush with people of an anti-American mindset.  Some of these are “czars” with powerful portfolios that are virtually exempt from legislative branch oversight.

But the radical tendencies aren’t reserved for staff.   Obama calls a known terrorist - the aforementioned Ayers - a friend.   Obama is an adherent of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and studied Fareed Zakaria’s Post-American World.  He’s bowed to foreign leaders, apologized for our nation’s strong leadership and is spending America into staggering debt.

Obama, it also cannot be forgotten, was groomed for this day.  He was helped by many who would love to see our nation lose its superpower status.  It contradicts his campaign rhetoric.

A childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a known communist organizer.   Yet communism has never worked in practice and never will.  It is the free market system and limited government that our nation’s founders wanted and has served us well.

Similarly, how could people believe equitable hope and change could come from someone who worshipped for two decades under the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the hateful “black liberation theology” he preaches?   Despite his claims to want a post-racial America, his actions speak louder than words.

The contradictions and radicalism have reached the tipping point.

Witness the growth of the Patriot Tea Party movement.  People are waking up and saying enough is enough.  They want America returned to its founding principles.

Even those who voted for him are now finding themselves opposed to Obama’s “change.” They are saying no to government-run health care, cap-and-trade energy taxes, “card check” unionization schemes, wasteful spending, bailouts, back room deals, illegal immigrant amnesty and other proposals contrary to our Constitution.

We of the tea parties are fighting back.

Beginning with rallies and town hall meetings, we are asking our elected officials: “Can you hear us now?” Elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts found actions were even louder than words.

We know limited government and a free market economy makes America work.  We see Obama’s policies as an impediment to America’s future success.

Every day, more people are waking up to this truth.  We cannot and will not allow our children to be denied the American Dream while simultaneously being burdened with staggering debt.

America is our land, given to us by those who fought and died to create the greatest nation on earth.  We cannot allow a few to destroy it.

We must - and we will - save our country.  God Bless America!

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Emery McClendon, a member of the Project 21 national advisory council, organized the “Enough Already” tea party rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana on April 18, 2009. Comments may be sent to Project21@nationalcenter.org.

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