Filed under: Barack Obama

Do you know the details of the new credit card legislation signed by President Barack Obama? Well, now you will have all the facts. Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Finance Professor at Syracuse University, breaks down the credit card legislation in this video. Americans are experiencing massive amounts of default in the current financial crisis, and African Americans are the greatest victims of the economic downturn. Black unemployment has reached 15%, which is nearly double the rate of unemployment for white americans. This massive black unemployment has impacted African American family finances nation-wide.

Click the video to watch!

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Filed under: Barack Obama, Politics, Economy, News, Obama's Weekly Address

President Barack Obama stood by his word. In his first political outreach in support of his $819 billion spending package, he visited Republicans on the Hill to push the proposal. He did this even though he would have won the vote in the House with just the Democratic votes he had in hand.

His repayment was that not one Republican joined him to support the package. ...

Let us see if President Obama continues to court the opposing party to keep his pledge to seek bipartisan solutions for the nation - or if he begins a less friendly course of doing business with Republicans.

He offered an olive branch last week and was rebuffed. Let's see how many more chances President Obama gives Republicans to repeat that action.



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Paul Shepard blogs the Democrat side of politics for Black Voices. He has been a journalist for 16 years: on the national urban/minority affairs beat for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and for AP in Washington, D.C. He now runs his own public affairs firm, Shepard Strategic Communications.

 

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Filed under: Elections, Barack Obama, Politics, News

Last Saturday, Black Voices' blogger Carmen Dixon posed the question, "How Many Incidents Equal a Trend?"

She brought this sentiment to the national conversation as a response to the level of crass jokes, rude comments, and outright threats that have come in the aftermath of electing the first non-White person to the presidency of the United States.

After hearing about how far the lawsuit contesting President-Elect Obama's eligibility for the White House has gone, I'm sure that Carmen was ready to count this fiasco as the latest incident that keeps the trend going.

This challenge to the status of Mr. Obama's constitutional permission to become the next president of the United States is, by most accounts, shallow at best. ...



Although conservatives can make an argument that a failure to follow such a critical piece of the Constitution opens the door for more procedural disobedience (and, perhaps, electoral dysfunction), they can not make a logical leap and say that the Constitution is a sacred document that is directly threatened by a failure to address this situation legally. Besides, one would question how sacrilegious tampering with the US Constitution must be for a conservative when he is so willing to amend it with social edicts such as the definition of marriage.

Many will say that the birth certificate legal challenge will serve as another reminder of the dirty politics that Republicans have been accused of engaging in for years. Further, some will also conclude that this is symbolic of the racism that still exists in America, saying that people would rather challenge a place of birth in court than allow a Black man to have his place in the White House.

I disagree. If anything, this latest round of misguided energy is a reflection of the failures of some to get it right - no pun intended, of course.

Although this lawsuit was originally submitted by New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio, the fuel feeding this fire came from some conservative bloggers and hard-core politicos around the nation.

If this effort was intended to be as effective as its supporters hope - that is, effective enough to remove Barack Obama from "The Office of the President-Elect" - its origin was too late, its momentum was too slow, and its champions were too predictable.

By making this "strategy" to eliminate Mr. Obama politically a last-minute tactic to halt his impending inauguration in January, those supporting this "effort" probably also held onto the "strategy" that a charismatic politician such as Obama could not escape the bloodbath Democratic nomination process, especially considering Obama's limited time in Washington, the presence of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic front runner, and, of course, the fact that African-Americans and young people just don't come out to vote in the numbers needed to make a difference for the Obama campaign.

Oops.

They probably "misunderestimated" America's distain with Washington, a frustration level that prompted a big leap of faith on someone that, despite a lack of Washington experience, exhibited the outward traits most want in a president, even if the political philosophies and voting records don't match with their personal beliefs.

And if the general mood of America was a resounding rejection of the current tactics and arguments of anti-Obama pundits (remember, folks had already turned on the "1st Black President of the United States" - Bill Clinton - and his wife months ago for harsh words towards Obama), what made people believe that this lawsuit had a chance to be heard by the Supreme Court?

Exactly.

The Constitution isn't going to go away because of the Obama birth certificate issue. Unfortunately for some, neither is Obama himself from his path to the White House.

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Lenny McAllister is a political commentator and guest co-host for Fox News - Charlotte's morning show "Fox News Rising." His commentary can be heard every Monday morning at 6:15. His website is lennymcallister.com

 

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