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I’ve been reading about the planned Sept. 11 National Day of Service. I certainly do not have an issue with service, but if my memory serves right – and it does today – we already have a national day of service… Martin Luther King Day. There has been a bit of a kerfuffle about Democrats selecting Sept. 11 as a national day of service. The event – with more at Serve.gov – been discussed over at Hot Air, Atlas Shrugs and Gateway Pundit, but I’m wondering what this development means for the Martin Luther King national day of volunteer service?

SAVAGE NATION, LIVE!

Do we REALLY need a Martin Luther King holiday? Today is Martin Luther King Day here in the United States. For the past few days I've felt led to articulate some thoughts about this holiday. This morning I made the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTVf5btHy5I Comments are welcome, either on this post or on the video's YouTube page.

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN: While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in...

King’s Dream has been fulfilled. The power of his message rings true. It was modest in it’s intent because it outlined only the framework by which racial harmony can grow. In communities all over the country we have thousands of Obamas and even more Oprahs; politicians, journalists, fire chiefs, judges and doctors thanks to the Dream.

Two elected Democrats took the occasion of Martin Luther King’s birthday celebration on January 16 to give race-baiting speeches before black audiences. One did it because he is stupid. The other did it because she thinks blacks are stupid.

Former Vice President Al Gore gave another one of his famous anti-Bush speeches(1) last week before an enthusiastic audience of left-wing extremists called the 'Liberty Coalition' at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., and a more annoying compilation of unsubstantiated accusations I've not heard in recent times.

Hillary's Plantation By SHELBY STEELE Hoover InstitutionJanuary 23, 2006; Page A16Of course Hillary Clinton's recent claim that Republicans run the House of Representatives like a "plantation" was old-fashioned political and racial pandering. After all, she uttered this remark at what certainly would have been a prime venue for her husband: a largely black audience on Martin Luther King Day. So, clearly, she was looking to connect with this most loyal Democratic constituency. But Mrs. Clinton is possessed of a tin ear precisely where her husband is all deftness and charm. Black audiences are beyond her. The room of black faces...

Mudslinging by leading Democrats, usually taking form these days as trying to brand Republicans as racists, confirms what I have been writing about for a number of years: the Democratic Party is running on an empty tank. Bankrupt of ideas, the only thing they have to offer is slamming the opposition and playing the race card. The latest case in point is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Martin Luther King Day pandering to a black audience in Harlem, telling them that Republicans run the House of Representatives "like a plantation and you know what I am talking about." According to Mrs....

LET ME see if I understand. The junior senator from New York, who many believe is the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, went to the famed Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day. Standing where King stood when he preached the installation sermon for his dear friend the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the junior senator said to the predominately black audience: When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what Im talking about. Beyond the GOP hyperbole that would like...

The latest installment in the Democratic Party’s attempt to divide the country came this week when their favorite daughter, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D – NY), used the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to stem the decline of Black people voting for their candidates. Democrats are justifiably frightened over the fact that in 2004 President Bush received between 12 to 16 percent support from African-American voters in battleground states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Speaking this week at Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church of Christ, Mrs. Clinton stated, “When you look at the way the House of...

    Race-baiters betray the King legacy By Tony SnowJan 20, 2006 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Let history record that the race-baiting industry died on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2006 -- courtesy of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City" oration and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's "You know what I'm talkin' about" rant.  The race-baiting industry has been dangling on the precipice of comic irrelevance for some time. Jesse Jackson's embrace of despots -- most recently, Hugo Chavez -- has reduced him to bit-player status, and Louis Farrakhan's "whitey blew up the levee" act after the hurricanes removed all doubt about...

On the occasion of the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday, New Jersey firearms opponents had planned to make a symbolic seven-mile march from an assembly point to a Dick's Sporting Goods store in West Windsor, New Jersey to protest that store's selling handgun ammunition. Instead, they found themselves explaining their absence to the local media. The reason given for canceling a peaceful protest designed to express the collective desires of the Mercer County Million Mom March Chapter, the NJ Million Mom March Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the local chapters of the Southern Christian...

As Americans Honor Martin Luther King, Abortion Destroys Black CommunityWashington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Millions of Americans today will honor the memory of assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King, but, as they do, pro-life leaders within the African American community are concerned about the toll abortion is taking. "Far and away the worse toll is taken in the most vulnerable community, the African American community, where black women are three times more likely to have an abortion than their white counterparts," explains Starr Parker, president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education.African American women make up 13.7 percent of...

Unlike our president, who spent Martin Luther King Day paying respectful tribute to MLK and Abraham Lincoln, Democratic Party notables, Hillary Clinton and Albert Gore, used the holiday as another opportunity to character-assassinate President George W. Bush. Just when we were beginning to think Hillary Clinton had found her voice -- albeit a decidedly phony one -- as a mature, seasoned politician poised for a presidential run, she reverts to those cacophonic utterances that find little resonance beyond her embittered but indispensable base. If one could momentarily suspend his powers of discernment, he could almost sympathize with a woman saddled...

Funny, I always thought that part of Doctor King’s dream was the coming of a day when nobody would notice the color of anybody’s skin, a day when their accomplishments would speak for themselves.

Local labor leaders are fuming over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's last-minute appearance at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast in San Francisco -- and a lot of their anger is directed at former Mayor Willie Brown. "We've spent a year and a half, and millions of dollars fighting this SOB,'' San Francisco Labor Council head Tim Paulson said of the governor. "For him to come to this breakfast was an absolute insult." Paulson also had a few words for Brown, the lawyer/lobbyist and talk-show pundit (he regularly appears on TV with this column's Phil Matier) who helped engineer Arnold's well-covered...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped a Martin Luther King Day stunner yesterday - comparing GOP rule of the House of Representatives to a "plantation." Standing alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton, Clinton told a mostly black crowd that "when you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation - and you know what I am talking about." The startling comment got muted response from those at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ on W. 116th St., but Republican leaders seized on her remarks as inflammatory and insensitive. "It is always wrong...

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) - Sen. John McCain said in a speech Monday that white Americans owe Martin Luther King Jr. more than black Americans because the slain civil rights leader "rescued us from a shame that would have destroyed us." McCain also read part of King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," which he called "among the most powerful and compelling cries for freedom I have encountered." King wrote the famous letter while awaiting trial after his arrest in 1963 for demonstrating without a permit in Birmingham, Ala. McCain, returning to the state where he suffered the body blow from which...

SARASOTA -- Many people just passed right by her. No spare change. No hellos. In some cases, not even a good morning for the seemingly homeless lady with thick glasses wheeling a cart full of belongings around the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast. Many people paid no attention to her at all. That is, until she wheeled the cart up to the front of the Newtown Estates Gymnasium, grabbed the microphone, and turned out to be someone that most people there knew quite well. Activist Glenda Williams wanted to send a message, and she did it even before...

Former candidate honors MLK with call to fight poverty The ideals and dreams of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are being forgotten, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday. “The great moral issue is the 37 million people in our country who live in poverty,” Edwards told about a thousand people attending Monday’s service for King at Mount Zion First Baptist Church on East Boulevard. “How can we turn our backs on 37 million people who had to beg for health care?” Edwards, who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina, cited a “void in moral...

On Monday, many Americans honored the memory of civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. President Bush, speaking at the “Let Freedom Ring” festival at Georgetown University, said that America must recommit itself to working toward Dr. King’s dream. How did Democrats such as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton choose to honor Dr. King? They did so by once again playing the race card and pitting black against white for the sole purpose of political gain. As reported in the Houston Chronicle, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said Monday in a speech in Harlem that President Bush was one of...

According to white liberals, I'm really missing the boat. As a supposed benefactor of “white privilege,” a topic that reached its pinnacle in the week leading up to MLK Day, white and black liberals keep telling me how much I have benefited from my whiteness. So, I went on a search to find out the truth about my automatic benefits and discover just how evil I am. A Boston Globe columnist obsessed over the “white privilege” of the Justice Alito nomination to the Supreme Court before going on a (highly off-topic) Bush-bash-fest and signaling his support for abortion-on-demand. As far...

(AP) WASHINGTON The White House charged Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was "out of bounds" when she said Monday that the Bush administration was "one of the worst" in U.S. history and compared the Republican House to "a plantation." White House spokesman Scott McLellan was asked about sharp remarks from two nationally prominent Democrats, Clinton, D-N.Y., and former Vice President Al Gore. Gore, in a separate Monday speech, called for an independent probe of the administration program that listened in -- without a warrant -- on Americans suspected of talking to terrorists overseas. Asked about the criticism coming from the two...

Mayor Ray Nagin apologized Tuesday for a Martin Luther King Day speech in which he predicted that New Orleans would be a "chocolate" city once more and asserted that "God was mad at America." "I said some things that were totally inappropriate. ... It shouldn't have happened," Nagin said, explaining he was caught up in the moment as he spoke to mostly black spectators, many of them fearful of being shut out of the city's rebuilding. During the speech Monday, Nagin, who is black, said that the hurricanes that hit the nation in quick succession were a sign of God's...

In a further clarification of yesterday’s remarks that a rebuilt New Orleans would be a “chocolate” city, Mayor Ray Nagin today said he’s planning to recruit Hershey Foods to establish a candy manufacturing plant in the hurricane-ravaged region. The Democrat mayor’s latest clarification builds on yesterday’s explanation that his remarks are not racist because chocolate is made with dark chocolate and white milk forming “a delicious drink.” “We’re in the very, very early stages of discussions with Hershey,” Mr. Nagin said, “It’s still in the pre-meeting, pre-phone call stage. But that’s what this chocolate city concept is all about. It’s...

In MLK day speech, Sen. Clinton slams the Bush team, saying GOP Congress is 'run like a plantation' Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sparked a Martin Luther King Day political firestorm yesterday by describing the GOP-controlled Congress as a "plantation" during a speech before an African-American congregation in Harlem. "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," Clinton (D-N.Y.) told an audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ during an event sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network. "It...

Hillary Clinton Blasts GOP 'Plantation' NEW YORK -- Sounding a little like a preacher, a fired-up Sen. Hillary Clinton lambasted the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, predicting the presidency "will go down in history as one of the worst" and saying the House of Representatives is run like a "plantation" where dissenting voices are squelched. "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," Clinton, D-N.Y., told the crowd at the Canaan Baptist...

It is time for conservatives to lay claim to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was no stalwart conservative, yet his core beliefs, such as the power and necessity of faith-based association and self-government based on absolute truth and moral law, are profoundly conservative. Modern liberalism rejects these ideas, while conservatives place them at the center of their philosophy. Despite decades of its appropriation by liberals, King’s message was fundamentally conservative. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, triggered by Rosa Parks’ refusal to abide by local segregation laws, sparked King’s rise from ministering a small church in Montgomery to...

As part of celebrating Martin Lurther King Day the President Viewed the Emancipation Proclamation at the National Archives Later in the day he attended and spoke at a "Let Freedom Ring" Celebration at the Kennedy Center which honoured the late Rosa Parks with the John Thompson, Jr. Legacy of a Dream Award. The President honoured Martin Lurther King at this event. The first lady along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are heading the official delegation to the inauguration of Liberia's first woman president. Also accompany the first lady on this trip is daughter Barbra Bush. For photos of their...

Controversial Words At Sharpton's MLK Event Clinton's Use Of Word 'Plantation' Raises Eyebrows Marcia Kramer Reporting (CBS) NEW YORK The Martin Luther King Day celebration at Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network is a rite of passage in an election year. And with so many big races this year, candidates and controversy were the order of the day. “Candidate for governor Tom "Swazee''s" here,” said Rev. Sharpton, completely mangling the Nassau County Executive’s name. So Nassau county executive Tom Suozzi had his name mangled. Then he was called on the carpet. Charged Bertha Lewis of the ACORN housing group: “Nassau...

SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to mend fences with labor today by appearing at a union-sponsored breakfast here in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. After a few scattered boos, the audience listened politely to his speech and laughed at his Terminator jokes. But when it was over, Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, harangued the governor for ``attacking all of us in our community.'' ``There were so many people who wanted to walk out of this breakfast here today,'' Paulson said, to enthusiastic applause. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also got...

Clinton Slams Bush, White House in Harlem By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as "one of the worst" in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched. Speaking during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, Clinton also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors "on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you." Her remarks were met with thunderous applause by a mostly black audience at the Canaan Baptist...

Sounding a little like a preacher, a fired-up Sen. Hillary Clinton lambasted the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, predicting the presidency "will go down in history as one of the worst" and saying the House of Representatives is run like a "plantation" where dissenting voices are squelched. "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," Clinton, D-N.Y., told the crowd at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. "It has been...

Crowds yelled 'shame! shame!' as two Air Force jets from nearby Randolph Air Force Base flew over San Antonio's Martin Luther King, Jr march today, marring a celebration which is generally one of the largest in the country. Bickering between march organizers and leaders who claimed the presence of what they called 'fighter jets' at an event organized to honor the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize colored this year's event, with many saying they wanted the King Day celebrations to become a demonstration against the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. "The inclusion of a fighter jet is...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Mayor Ray Nagin suggested that recent destruction from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and other natural disasters is a sign that "God is mad at America," and also mad at black communities for tearing themselves apart with violence and divisive politics. "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin said as he and other city leaders commemorated Martin Luther King Day. "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also....

Commemorating King at Duke By Steve Miller FrontPageMagazine.com | January 16, 2006 It was painful to sit through and disturbing to see the incredible affection that was showered on Belafonte--not only from the adoring audience, but from university officials and even the Mayor of Durham, who lovingly furnished Belafonte with a key to the city. The event was held in the Duke Chapel, which seats about 1600 people. Every seat was filled plus about 200 more people sitting or standing. Many in attendance where adults from the Durham community, but there were certainly a fair number of students there as...

Oh, the words we hear dead men say! When I heard there would be a protest on MLK Day in San Antonio, Texas, where the largest parade in the nation is held for this heralded man, I questioned why. I couldn’t imagine a protest of any kind, until I heard the reason. Because military jets would be flying overhead--in honor of MLK Day--as the processional of followers made their way through the downtown streets of this mostly Hispanic city, there would be shouts of anger and protests at military planes which these protestors felt did not accurately portray Martin Luther...

Commemorating the day Thomas Jefferson declared religious freedom for all Americans, the nation today celebrates Religious Freedom Day as declared by President George Bush. "The right to religious freedom is a foundation of America," said Bush in his proclamation Friday. "Our Founding Fathers knew the importance of freedom of religion to a stable democracy, and our Constitution protects individuals' rights to worship as they choose." In 1786, Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, protecting the civil rights of people to express their religious beliefs without suffering discrimination. Now, 14 years after the first Religious Freedom Day proclamation by...

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN: While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in...

It is time for conservatives to lay claim to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was no stalwart conservative, yet his core beliefs, such as the power and necessity of faith-based association and self-government based on absolute truth and moral law, are profoundly conservative. Modern liberalism rejects these ideas, while conservatives place them at the center of their philosophy. Despite decades of its appropriation by liberals, King’s message was fundamentally conservative. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, triggered by Rosa Parks’ refusal to abide by local segregation laws, sparked King’s rise from ministering a small church in Montgomery...

(Washington-AP, Jan. 16, 2006 6:15 AM) _ Blacks are more likely than whites to commemorate Martin Luther King's birthday, an AP-Ipsos poll found. They're also more inclined to harbor doubts about progress toward his dream of racial equality. Three-fourths of Americans say there has been significant progress toward equality, but only 66 percent of blacks felt that way. Racial integration has swept across much of American life, and blacks have gained economic ground since the height of the civil rights movement. Two decades ago, the government established a federal holiday in honor of the slain civil rights leader. On some...

Isn't this a better way to address each other today? Since everyone doesn't celebrate the same holidays, why be offensive to each other by picking out a specific event to celebrate? Some people may celebrate Vermont declaring its independence from New York and we should accept this diversity. P.S. Isn't it just a little bit of a violation of seperation of chruch and state to have a holiday recognizing a Southern Baptist minister? Discuss this amongst yourselves...

DES MOINES, Iowa—Des Moines activist Adin Davis and Gov. Tom Vilsack will be recognized tomorrow during the state's ceremony honoring Martin Luther King Junior. The Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans will award Davis a King Lifetime Achievement Award. He will be recognized for his activism, diversity consulting and organization of King and Kwanzaa celebrations in Des Moines. Davis, who met King 40 years ago in Chicago, says the late civil rights leader was a hero who changed the hearts of Americans. Vilsack will be honored for helping to restore voting rights for felons who have served their sentences...

Racism was once an important issue in this country. Martin Luther King Day reminds us of the time and the struggle. Unfortunately today, a once-important issue has been so politicized and exploited, it has been cheapened into meaninglessness. The character attacks by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his Democratic colleagues on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito are a good example of this. The contingent of Democratic senators, with no substantive arguments to question the stellar credentials of Alito, chose instead to smear him, and of course the brush that liberals predictably reach for in smear operations is racism. The allegations that...

Most Americans think there has been significant progress in achieving the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of racial equality, although blacks are more skeptical, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Racial integration has swept across much of U.S. life, and blacks have gained economic ground since the height of the civil-rights movement. Two decades ago, the government established a federal holiday in honor of the slain civil-rights leader. On some measures such as annual income, blacks have closed the gap considerably with whites in the past few decades, census figures show. The progress for blacks may have stalled, however, and...

ATLANTA (AP) - On the eve of what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 77th birthday, his legacy is under attack and its greatest defender is unable to speak. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, is recovering from a stroke that partially paralyzed her, and on Saturday made only her first public appearance since last year's King holiday observance, smiling from a wheelchair at the Salute to Greatness Dinner. The couple's four children are divided over whether to sell the family-run center that promotes King's teachings. And the spotlight is again hitting King's more human side in a new book...

History and culture are not merely rituals repeated every year to keep the memories of dead people and traditions alive -- but is our daily living being created anew each and every day. And that should be the significance of the King Day beyond the remembrance of the particulars that tend to grow irrelevant in time -- as they well should. Every moment that’s ever been, has been the summation of all that has gone before -- and is not merely the old being made to seem fresh and new. Those moments, had their own unique place and time in...

The Talk Shows Sunday, January 15th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Reps. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., John Boehner, R-Ohio, and John Shadegg, R-Ariz., candidates in the upcoming House majority leader race; Harry Johnson, president, Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Paul Bremer, former U.S. administrator in Iraq; Taylor Branch, civil rights author and historian; Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow John McWhorter; Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and...

Harry Belafonte will be the guest speaker at Duke University tommorow for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr celebration. Ok,I dont know every thing about Dr. King~ But this I beleive: He would not appreciate every militant leftist piggy backing onto to his death. I plan to write an email to and call Duke University to let them know how I view their name after hosting this leftist, Duke makes me Puke. Contact info here