DarkStar Spouts Off

News & Notes

I was on News & Notes today. Here's the link.
"You know..."

Hard Times...

I don't have much time but that documentary laid it out very clearly. Parents/guardians/students are a major component in the failures of Douglass High School.

The entire household saw the show. Mrs. D.S. and I are STILL talking about it. It confirms EVERY. DAMN. THING. I have said about the Baltimore city school system, plus some. Passing kids along to pass them along! What the hell are the degrees worth? Nothing! I've also mentioned the parents/grandparents/guardians not doing what is required for their children.

And then to say NCLB is to blame? There is no way a school can meet the NCLB requirements under those circumstances. None. But even saying that, the movie did a SEVERE injustice in not going into the details of the attempted take over of the school by the state and how the state assembly blocked the plan simply because the assembly is dominated by Democrats and the take over was attempted during a Republican governor's administration.

Like I said before, to hell with the students! Democrats can't look bad!

Or was NCLB really just a hook to really show "inner city school" dysfunction and non-participation by students and parents/grandparents/guardians without having cries of "racism!" being made?

Hmmmmm.....

Katrina Myths, Again

This is the 2nd time doing this. I lost the first one and it pisses me the #&%$&%^$&## off! They "updated" Typepad and the new rich text editor SUCKS! It takes twice as long to create a post than the prior interface. And this is the 3rd damn time I've "lost" a post since the "upgrade"! Any damn way, from P6 I saw this:

Limbaugh: I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property…I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can…whining and moaning—where’s FEMA, where’s BUSH. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

I remember when he ranted about the media misreporting of Katrina. Let me remind you of some things.

NEW ORLEANS - On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten."

Five days later, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told Oprah Winfrey: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

The ugliest reports — children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement — soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans.

The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution.

But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.

And then the reporters tried to cover their behinds with pieces like this:

As I walked briskly through the dimly lit area inside the food service entrance of New Orleans' Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the thought of pulling back the sheets covering the four stinking, decomposing corpses in front of me seemed wrong, even perverse. Before I'd even thought to ask, one of the two soldiers who escorted me, Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks, nixed the prospect of looking inside the freezer he and another soldier said contained "30 or 40" bodies.

"I ain't got the stomach for it, even after what I saw in Iraq," he said.

I didn't push it. Now I wish I had, as gruesome as that may seem. The soldiers might have branded me a morbid fiend and run me the hell out of there, but my story in the September 6 edition of the Times-Picayune would have been right, or at least included a line saying I'd been denied the opportunity to lay eyes on the freezer.

Instead, I quoted Brooks and another soldier, by name, about the freezer's allegedly grim inventory, including the statement that it contained a "7-year-old with her throat cut."

Neither the mass of bodies nor the allegedly expired child would ever be found. As I later reported, an internal review by Arkansas Guard Lt. Col. John Edwards found that Brooks and others who repeated the freezer story had heard it in the food line at Harrah's Casino, a law enforcement and military staging area a block away. Edwards told me no soldier had actually seen bodies in a freezer.

Do I need to write more?

This From Mr. Phone Sex Himself

This from Mr. Phone Sex himself?

O'REILLY: Do you think 13- and 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds are smart enough to understand they put themselves at risk when they do this kind of behavior? The girls that you talked to, do they have any idea or are they just stone cold dumb?

BRODY: Well, bear in mind some of these pictures were taken two or three years ago and they surfaced now. But some of these girls were 11, so they could be, perhaps, understood as being a little more innocent or thoughtless. Some kids, perhaps, are looking for attention. Some see Lindsay Lohan doing this kind of thing and want to do it themselves. Some are impulsive.

O'REILLY: But it's an amazing amount of kids involved with this -- 20 -- in an affluent school district. This isn't, you know, the inner city; you would think that these kids would have some kind of a values system. It's not that it's so horrendous. You know, it's not murder or rape. But it's so stupid.

What do you mean by calling him Mr. Phone Sex, D.S.? Here it is.

On Dropped Ten Cent Coins

This isn't really ready to go out, but I'm putting it out because I have no idea how busy I will continue to be.

The media circus over McClellan's book is interesting. My most serious comment about this is, did the president and his administration lie about the real reason for going to war in Iraq? If the "misled" the public as McClellan alleges, how do you sleep at night knowing men and women are dying under false pretenses?

As I have written before, I think the Bush administration has done a poor job of explaining to the American people why we are fighting. There have been numerous reasons given as well as direct conflicts in statements given by Bush and Cheney.

Liberal Press

Isn't it interesting that McClellan is saying the "liberal press" went along with the call for war? I find it interesting because "the left" has said newspapers like The Washington Post beat the drums for war while "the right" has said newspapers like The Washington Post were anti-war.

Isn't it interesting that McClellan is saying the "liberal press" didn't do enough to investigate statements made by the Bush administration? Going by those comments, that means the "liberal press" essentially was pro war. Meanwhile, the Bush administration and it's "right media" surrogates went to war against the "liberal press" to keep Americans supporting the war.

Conservative Media

A long time conservative host who has an afternoon show on WBAL, Ron Smith, has said his opposition to the war, even when he provided other conservatives who questioned the war, cost him listeners. Yesterday, he said his ratings indicate he lost 30% of his listeners. He thanked the radio station for keeping him around. I wondered why the radio station started advertising his show so heavily in other media sources.

Scarves And Flags

OK, I'm late to this party, but I have to comment about the scarf, Michelle Malkin, and sensitivity. First, I'm going to provide the first money quote:

So it was with some dismay that I learned last week that Dunkin' Donuts spokeswoman Rachael Ray, the ubiquitous TV hostess, posed for one of the company's ads in what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh.

The emphasis is mine. Then she follows up with:

The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons.

She launches an attack on Dunkin Doughnuts, based on what appeared to be a black-and-white keffiyeh!

She later writes:

It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists. Too many of them bend over backward in the direction of anti-American political correctness. Naturally, liberal commentators on the Internet are now up in arms over Dunkin' Donuts' decision to yank the ad and mock anyone who expresses concern over the keffiyeh's symbolism.

Oh, THAT ONE is going to come back to bite her. But before I go there, I have to say that this scarf design, and I'm calling it a scarf, has been worn by older women in my family for years. Now we recognize clothing that fanatics who want to kill people and blow things up wear and the clothing is off limits? What about pants? I'm in a wedding this summer and the men are going to wear tuxedos with bow ties. So, are bow ties off limits because of the Nation of Islam? Are bald heads off limits because of skin heads?

Here is the flag part of things.

When Blacks have complained the Confederate Flag represents TERRORISM of Blacks and it shouldn't be displayed, where was Michelle Malkin? From what I can see, she has been mostly quiet on the issue.

Well, in going after the Black Family Reunion, Malkin wrote:

But why is it racist when white Southerners gather to celebrate their history and tradition, and not when black Northerners gather for the same purpose? Why is it promoting "bigotry," as The Washington Post editorialized, when South Carolinians rally around a Confederate flag, but promoting "diversity" when black activists in the nation's capital rally around a multicultural flag?

She mentioned nothing of the terrorism which occurred when the Confederate flag was flying, did she?

Dirty Jobs

There is a television show on Discovery called "Dirty Jobs." Right now, the host is helping people who suck semen out of gobblers to inseminate the hens. They have to do this because they breed the turkeys to produce big breasts. As such, they are physically incapable of mating.

That's right, they are bread for big breasts making it impossible for the turkeys to breed naturally. And, there are men who suck semen from the gobblers.

I Have Another Question

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, they had a segment concerning men in Dallas County, Texas who were wrongfully convicted of crimes, with the prosecutors office actually withholding evidence of innocence of those who were on trial. The segment was moving and VERY disturbing.

But what is more disturbing is how all of the people who, rightly, shouted from the rooftops about Nifong trying to railroad the Duke lacrosse players, NONE OF THEM have said squat about this.

So far, 17 men have been cleared in Dallas - that's more than most states. All were put on trial by prosecutors who worked for the legendary District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade was Dallas' top prosecutor for more than 30 years. He never lost a case he handled personally. But it turns out the record of Wade's office was too good to be true. And now, a new Dallas district attorney is focusing on the Wade legacy - it's a search for innocent men waiting to be exonerated.

Again, why haven't they said a word? And why is it that when I was searching for comments about this, it seems to be the "left leaning" blogs commenting on it the most? At least, they are first in the Google results.

Should I even ask how many people were executed who were not guilty of the crime they committed?

Old Guard vs. New School, Getting Noticed

I wrote before about the Wright mess being about the old guard vs. new school. I also tend to write about media misrepresentations of the Black community. So, I guess I should be glad about this article apearing in The Washington Post.

A growing cadre of young black activists is using the Internet in an attempt to eclipse traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and hit the refresh button on the civil rights movement. Bloggers with names such as the Cruel Secretary, and blogs called What About Our Daughters? and the African American Political Pundit, have railed against groups in the "black-o-sphere," saying they do not understand young black Americans, are behind the times and react too slowly to incidents involving the younger generation.

The leaders of the fledgling movement -- Van Jones and James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org -- may not be familiar to many, but their work is. They circulated a letter and a petition last week promising that the Democrats will pay a "political price" if they overturn the will of black and young voters and choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y) as the party's nominee over Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Jones and Rucker were also the first to successfully raise awareness about the cases of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder for beating a white classmate in Jena, La. The campaign led to one of the largest civil rights marches in the South in recent years.

Blogger Gina McCauley, 32, who is organizing the first conference of nonwhite bloggers this summer in Atlanta, said that what Jones and Rucker have started "can potentially become a new Niagara movement," a reference to the small contingent of black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who met near Niagara Falls in 1905 to form an organization to oppose segregation. The organization eventually became the NAACP.

I'm not glad, in fact I'm feeling nervous. The media has done so much misreporting, and a lot of it deliberate, that I expect another shoe to drop, a bigger shoe, which gets it all wrong. I have to check these blogs to see if the Post article was accurate concerning their comments.

Losing Hope With 70 Ministries?

OK, the second paragraph is a good summary of the entire piece:

Consider the corrosive effect Wright and others like him have on their communities as they rob thousands of listeners of the American dream: hope that through their hard work they can have better lives.

Excuse me, but a church that robs people of hope for a better life, doesn't get to be a big as Trinity. Especially when the church claims over 70 ministries. I also find it interesting that although he claimed anecdotes of what he has encountered, he never wrote anything like that about Trinity.

Michael Eric Dyson

On a "Best Of" show for Donnie Simpson, I heard an interview done by Donnie Simpson of Michael Eric Dyson.

I'm not a fan of his, but the man can use the Queen's English like no other. There are few peers to him in linguistic gymnastics and NO ONE, I mean NO ONE, can go from standard American English, to the Queen's English, to street slang, and back, as fluently, clearly, and accurately, as he does. And, at times, he makes points that are so good you have to acknowledge it.

Hell, he is the ONLY person who have I seen or heard completely shut down Ann Coulter!

This Case Is Disturbing

This case is disturbing on a number of levels.

If this is true, then you have a situation where grown men sexually abused young girls under the guise of religion.

If it is true or if it is not true, you have the authorities raiding a location based on a series of telephone calls and they can't locate the person who made the calls. They can't locate the person for whom they made the raid.

I'm troubled. Right now I think the call may not have been from a true victim.

Yeah, I Asked What's A Love Language For Punk

Yes, I did ask for a love language translation for Tavis is a punk.

Here is Tavis Smiley discussing his leaving The Tom Joyner Morning Show.

It still seems a little too coincidental, but I take him at his word and apologize for the comment.

Das Auto?

The marketing people at Volkswagen have come up with a marketing campaign that uses the phrase, "Das Auto."

The marketing types over at Volkswagen want us to think ‘VW’ when we think of cars so they’ve launched a new campaign with the simple tagline “Das Auto,” German for “The Car.” VW used the backdrop of last month’s Frankfurt Motor Show to launch its new TV and print campaign across Germany and you can be sure it will be spreading across the globe in no time.

There's one problem, to me, with the campaign: the reliability of VWs. In short, the car isn't reliable and when you need service, getting a good VW mechanic is hard to do. The cars, when running, are good. But the overall lack of reliability, makes "The Car" "No Car."

No Love For Tavis?

This morning Tom Joyner announced Tavis Smiley has quit the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Tavis has come under a lot of fire from Blacks for directly criticizing Obama and making statements that appear to Obama supporters, to be attacking Obama, even when Tavis didn't mention Obama's name.

So let me understand this.

Black Republicans and Black conservatives whine about Blacks calling them names but they continue on, and Tavis, who has previously come under fire from Republicans and conservatives, now folds under criticism from Blacks? Even if the criticism wasn't in nice words and some taking it too damn far with threats, Tavis, no longer getting the love from some Blacks, quits?

During the primary, Tavis has said he is trying to keep focused on the issues in the race and not get caught up in the typical topical media feeding frenzies. I think he was doing a good job at that, but he was not getting some love. In fact, Tavis started commenting that Blacks need to develop a "Love Language" to disagree in a disagreeable manner. I think he's right about that, but, just because the language is harsh, he folds?

I need a translation. How do you translate "Tavis is a punk!" into a Black Love Language?

[ UPDATE ]

From Tavis Smiley:

There is no way to put into words the love and respect that Tom Joyner and I have for each other, or the love affair that I’ve had with TJMS listeners for almost 12 years now.

Due to the overwhelming amount of phone calls and emails I have received from listeners and other media, I wanted to briefly clarify a few issues that I will address more fully in my regular TJMS commentary on Tuesday morning, April 15, at 8:20 a.m. ET.

I did not “quit” the Tom Joyner Morning Show effective immediately.  In July I will celebrate my 12th anniversary with the show, and as I discussed with Tom, it is my intention to take on the issues of the day in my commentary twice every week with the same energy, passion and commitment until the end of June.

Contrary to what has been suggested, I have decided to clear some things off my plate so that I can devote my time and attention to some exciting and empowering projects that The Smiley Group, Inc. and other divisions of my company have underway this summer, this fall and beyond.

That's what he said.
   

Good, Because She Stinks

The title says it all.

After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.

Ms. Couric isn't even halfway through her five-year contract with CBS, which began in June 2006 and pays an annual salary of around $15 million. But CBS executives are under pressure to cut costs and improve ratings for the broadcast, which trails rival newscasts on ABC and NBC by wide margins.

Her departure would cap a difficult episode for CBS, which brought Ms. Couric to the network with considerable fanfare in a bid to catapult "Evening News" back into first place. Excluding several weeks of her tenure, Ms. Couric never bested the ratings of interim anchor Bob Schieffer, who was named to host the broadcast temporarily after "Evening News" anchor Dan Rather left the newscast in the wake of a discredited report on George W. Bush's National Guard service.

About That Judge Who Gave A "Talking To" To Blacks Only

[UPDATES]

About the judge, Marvin Arrington, who gave a good "talking to" to a group of Blacks in his courtroom...

On Booker Rising, I commented: that it has been done before in the Baltimore area, and that a well known defense attorney had radio ads on local "hip hop" stations lamenting how he is tired of seeing Blacks in the court room. I also mentioned that a well known family run funeral home in the Baltimore area did the same thing. I asked, "What good did it do when the crime rate is still out of control?"

In the Baltimore area, a judge did the same thing. A well known defense attorney did the same thing in radio commercials on hip hop stations in Baltimore. A local funeral home did the same thing in Baltimore. The result?

The same ole same ole.

I understand his frustrations, but just talking won't do it. Only one on one intervention will do it.

This morning on The Tom Joyner Morning Show, the judge was interviewed (audio link here) and he stated that he has a scholarship program for Blacks studying law and that he is in the community working with young Blacks. That makes it a lot different than what Cosby did and, IMO, better. He's actually doing something more than talking.

More later.

I Present, Media Misrepresentation

Here are examples of media lies misrepresentation. The first example is a lie misstatement of fact that has quickly taken a life of its own:

The larger truth is that graduation is the last stop for an academic train whose passengers mostly disembark at earlier stations. According to statistics released last week by America's Promise Alliance, only 53 percent of African American students complete high school.

I'm sorry, but that's not what the report stated. (The report in PDF is here). The report stated:

This report concentrates on the performance of America’s largest cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas. The 50 most heavily populated cities in the nation were identified using 2006 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. With a population of 8.2 million, New York is by far the largest city in the country. Los Angeles and Chicago follow with 3.8 and 2.8 million residents respectively. Wichita rounds out the top 50. With a population of about 358,000, the leading city of Kansas is less than one-twentieth the size of New York City.

Concentrating on the largest cities is different from all African American students.

The second example, to me, is purposeful and insidious.

You Are The Problem

Eugene Robinson, you are part of the problem. How many times have you written about the "good" side of Black America, vs. the "bad" side of Black America?

On April 4, 1968, it was possible to make the generalization that being black in this country meant being poor; fully 40 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line, according to census data, with another 20 percent barely keeping their heads above water. African Americans were heavily concentrated in the inner cities and the rural South. We were far less likely than whites to go to college, and our presence in the corporate world was minimal.

Today, about 25 percent of African Americans are mired in poverty. In many ways, being black and poor is a more desperate and hopeless condition now than it was 40 years ago. For those who managed to enter the middle class, however, most of the old generalizations no longer apply.

...

Forty years ago, not even 2 percent of black households earned the equivalent of $100,000 a year in today's dollars. Now, about 10 percent of black households have crossed that threshold. George and Louise Jefferson aren't so lonely anymore in that "deluxe apartment in the sky."

In fact, I maintain you focus more on:

For those who haven't made it into the middle class, however, things are different. Inner-city communities were hollowed out -- a process accelerated by the riots that followed King's death -- and left fallow for decades. Middle-class professionals fled, businesses closed, schools disintegrated, family structures fell apart. Drugs and crime were symptoms of the general rot; the gentrification of recent years has just shifted the pathology from one part of the city to another, or perhaps to a close-in suburb, sweeping it into a corner.

And your last paragraph demonstrates it:

It's misleading, then, to make any general statement about the condition of black Americans without recognizing black America's diversity. Economically speaking, there is one group of black Americans that has achieved success and one that hasn't -- and the distance between those groups is growing. To make more progress toward Martin Luther King's dream, we have to make an honest assessment of how far we've come -- and honestly account for who's been left behind.

Be gone with you oh nattering nabob of negativity!

Chris Wallace Defends Obama

Chris Wallace comes to the defense of Obama when his Fox cohorts go "too far"!

This is unbelievable considering he was dishonest concerning Al Sharpton. BTW, stay tuned for a post about Al Sharpton.

Notes On The News

Passing comments on news and opinion pieces of the past few days.

Huckabee on Wright

I've received a few emails about this, and I've seen this a few places on the web. Mike Huckabee goes out on a limb:

And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

I'm stunned.

Sports

Bye-Bye Dookies!!!!!

Second-seeded Duke's quest for a fourth national championship ended abruptly in the second round when West Virginia used an astonishing rally to shock the Blue Devils 73-67 in the West Region on Saturday.

I shall forever despise Duke and their fans because of the racist comments directed towards Patrick Ewing, Sr. when Georgetown played Duke at Duke.

It's About History, If You Are A Terrorist

The next time some jack ass pundit says Blacks should move from areas where they are not wanted, or someone tells you the Confederate Flag isn't about hate, it's about heritage or history, tell them to kiss your a**, and if you're Black, tell them to kiss your BLACK a**, with emphasis appropriately placed where it belongs.

Deana Bryant allowed her 16-year-old son to wear a shirt emblazoned with the flag to school one day last week in open defiance of the ban. Speaking from behind the grocery counter where she works, Bryant said the flag is not about racism.

"It's his heritage," she said, her blue eyes flashing.

The same day, Lakeal Ellis, a nurse, kept her three daughters home from Fort Hill High School. Shaken by the escalating tension, they packed their clothes. The African American family came here a little more than a year ago from the District hoping to find better schools and a quieter life.

The girls were getting good grades at the high school. But after enduring racial slurs and harassment, sometimes at the hands of youths with Confederate flags, the Ellis family decided to give up and return to the District.

"Everything is over with Cumberland," Ellis said. "It's not okay for my kids."

I've been there. The heritage of Cumberland also includes incest. I'm not kidding. Look at where it is located.

If Billary Takes Texas

If Billary takes Texas, they need to thank Rush Limbaugh.

News & Notes

I'll be on News & Notes today. More later.

[ Update ]

We discussed people starting to get hyped about presidential politics, the Southern Strategy and the Clinton campaign, and the noose gracing the cover of the golf magazine.

The other round tabler talkers were Ambra Nykol and John McCann. Instead of calling from a land line, I was at The Baltimore Sun and did it over an ISDN line. Hopefully you will her less "ummms" and more bass. :-)

The audio link.

Media Race Baiting

The media has been saying that there is a great level of violence between Blacks and "Hispanics." The conservative media and conservative bloggers have been pointing it out and asking why "Black leaders" aren't saying anything about this violence. In the forums that I visit, when this is brought up I mention that not all Hispanics are the same. For example, I know Blacks and Puerto Ricans get along well in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. I also know the same can be said for Dominicans. I definitely can't say that I know this is the same for Latinos from Mexico or El Salvador. I've heard about tensions and I've experienced an isolated incident, so I can't say yes or no either way. Therefore, the broad brush is more harmful than useful.

So, now we have Hillary Clinton winning the Nevada caucus, and the advantage she had with Latino voters over Obama is being reported.

The Nevada results contained some worrisome signs for Obama along demographic lines. The heavy support that Clinton won among Hispanics suggested that he could face an uphill climb to win that important group in California, New York and New Jersey, the three most populous states with primaries on Feb. 5. In the first contest in which race has played an important role, white caucusgoers in Nevada backed Clinton over Obama, 52 percent to 34 percent, and nearly two-thirds of Latinos chose Clinton. Black voters broke heavily for Obama over Clinton, 83 percent to 14 percent.

However, Matthew Yglesias has an interesting take on the matter:

There's lots of reporting out there on Hillary Clinton's strong win -- 64-26 -- over Barack Obama among Latino voters in Nevada. One thing I would add to this is that Clinton did pretty well with whites, too -- beating Obama 52-34. What's more, we've seen over and over again that Obama does better with more affluent voters and with better-educated voters. And, of course, the pool of non-hispanic whites is more affluent and better-educated than is the pool of Latinos.

Long story short, I'd be interested in seeing how different hispanics and non-hispanic whites really look once you control for non-ethnic demographic factors. Or, in other words, does Obama really have a specific problem with Latino voters, or is this more of a class phenomenon?

He asks a good question.

Should the break down of voters be reported? Is it necessary? I have to write yes to both questions. However, there is a right way to ask and a wrong way to ask. The media is too lazy so they are going to ask the wrong way.

When The Editors of The Washington Times...

When the editors of The Washington Times correctly relates something about Black politics, you know there is a something special happening:

Interestingly, it seems the many of the older members of the CBC, contemporaries of civil-rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., and stalwarts in the civil-rights movement, are supporting Mrs. Clinton, while the younger generation of black leaders are favoring Mr. Obama. This falls in line with the national debate over whether experience or change is the most important value voters should consider when selecting a candidate.

The thing is, I doubt if they realize what is really happening. This is MORE than a generational thing. This is WAY more than just a debate about experience.

I'm thinking that with the racial politics coming out of the Democratic primary, and the friction between the "old guard" and the "new school" Black Democrats and the greater percentage of younger Blacks to be registered as independents, the Democratic party may be at the point where the younger Black Democrat politicians are going to force a "what are we getting out of this relationship" situation while other Democrats who want to win the South are going to say, "enough of our party being the 'Black party'".
In other words, I wonder if we are seeing the beginning of a Democratic civil war. And then I wonder if people like Shannon Reeves will be the ones who get the microphone or if it will continue to be the standard Black Republicans who get more mic time. If Reeves gets more time, then Black Republicans will show they are serious about trying to get more Blacks into the Republican party. If people like Mychal Massie get the mic time, you know that they are not serious.