Archive
Your Black News: Man Reportedly Offering $10 Million For Iraqi Journalist’s Shoe
BAGHDAD — Calling someone the “son of a shoe” is one of the worst insults in Iraq. But the lowly shoe and the Iraqi who threw both of his at President Bush, with widely admired aim, were embraced around the Arab world on Monday as symbols of rage at a still unpopular war.
In Saudi Arabia, a newspaper reported that a man had offered $10 million to buy just one of what has almost certainly become the world’s most famous pair of black dress shoes.
A daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, reportedly awarded the shoe thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi, a 29-year-old journalist, a medal of courage.
In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, people calling for an immediate American withdrawal removed their footwear and placed the shoes and sandals at the end of long poles, waving them high in the air [...]
Your Black News: Juan Williams Calls Iraqis ‘Ingrates’
At a time when social-consciousness is at its peak, and millions of citizens around the world are scratching their heads to figure out how much of a foreign policy disaster the Iraq War was/is — especially in light of the shoe-throwing incident last Sunday — some of our more… ‘conservative-minded’ fellows still don’t get it. Of such is FOX News superstar-Negro, Juan Williams, who declared, last night, that dissenting Iraqis are petty “ingrate[s]” who don’t value the 2003-invasion, which has wrecked more than a million lives:
Your Black News: Obama: State Of Veteran Affairs ‘Breaks My Heart’
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.
Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama’s Cabinet. [...]
“When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served — higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate — it breaks my heart,” Obama told NBC [...]
Your Black News: Obama To Keep Robert Gates As Defense Secretary
Sources tell ABC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be staying on in the top Pentagon job, for at least the first year of the Obama administration. “It is a done deal,” a source close to the process tells ABC News.
Gates, while a registered independent, has served numerous Republican administrations. President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was spiraling out of control.
The former Eagle Scout is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
As CIA Director for President George H.W. Bush in 1992, Gates conveyed to incoming President Bill Clinton that he wished to stay on in that role. Clinton did not keep him on, replacing him instead with Jim Woolsey.
From ABC News
Your Black Politics: David Letterman Embarrasses FOX News & Bill O’Reilly
Last night, David Letterman gave the bully-boy of cable-news a taste of his own medicine. As the interview progressed, O’Reilly grew increasingly agitated — much to the delight of Letterman and the studio audience. At one point, Letterman accused O’Reilly of putting “artificial facts” in his head, and believing them. On the subject of Iraq – one Bill claims to have mastered – the FOX News host proved to be unbelievably nescient, and incapable of defending the talking points he spews on his nightly show. The manhandling is pretty graphic (ADULTS ONLY):
Video At Your Black Politics
Your Black News: Barack Obama Claims The “Surge Has Succeeded”
OBAMA: ….There is no doubt that the violence is down and that is a testament to the troops that were sent and General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters….
O’REILLY: But if it had been up to you there would not have been a surge. You and Joe Biden, no surge.
OBAMA: Hold on, if you look at the the debate that was taking place. We had gone through five years of mismanagement of this war, which I thought was disastrous, and the president wanted to double down and continue and open-ended policy that did not create the kind of pressure on the Iraqis to take responsibility and reconcile.
O’REILLY: But it worked, come on.
OBAMA: Bill, look – I already said it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
O’REILLY: Why can you not say, ‘I was right in the beginning, but I was wrong on the surge?’
OBAMA: Because there is an underlying problem with what we have done. We have reduced the violence. But the Iraqis have still not taken responsibility. And we still do not have the kind of political reconciliation — we are still spending, Bill, $10 billion or $12 billion a month
O’REILLY: And if you’re president, I hope you can get them to kick in on that.
OBAMA: They’ve got $79 billion dollars in the dirt
O’REILLY: I’ll go with you.
OBAMA: Let’s go!
Your Black Gospel: Rev. Lowery To Deliver Benediction At Obama Inauguration
An Atlanta civil rights icon will play a very visible role in the historic and star-studded inauguration of Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president.
A congressional committee announced late Wednesday that the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a stalwart of the civil rights movement and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will deliver the benediction.
Lowery, retired pastor of Atlanta’s Cascade United Methodist Church, said Obama called him a few weeks ago and said he wanted him to take part in the Jan. 20 ceremony but hadn’t decided exactly what role he would play. Obama said he’d get back to Lowery.
“I guess this is his way of getting back to me,” Lowery said Wednesday afternoon as he fielded dozens of reporters’ calls at his southwest Atlanta home. [...]
The civil rights leader will join other celebrities of the entertainment and religious communities [...]
Read More