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Erik Nielson, writing at the Huffington Post, says that President Obama deceived many who supported him during his first presidential campaign, including hip-hop artists. He says that Obama's policies haven’t helped the minorities who elected him to office. There was something remarkable about seeing rappers pledge their support to a mainstream presidential candidate, especially given the history of antipathy between national politicians and hip hop. And, of course, there was something equally remarkable about watching a future president embrace hip hop culture. Indeed, whereas politicians on both sides of the aisle had made a political tradition out of demonizing hip...

(CBS4) COCONUT CREEK Investigators say Kevin Mair, 25, of Plantation walked into his classroom Friday morning at Atlantic Technical Center in Coconut Creek using a cane and wearing the types of headphones used in a gun range. Surveillance tape was released by the police showing the suspect approaching one person and that person doubling over. They say he became agitated and displeased about the lack of black history courses being taught. (February is Black History Month.) The teacher asked Mair to leave and called for staff assistance. Broward school spokesman, Keith Bromery, said the student – who is an adult...

Whenever I start thinking about all the damage that's been done to America by the social engineering socialists, I have to remind myself that some of my best friends are left-wingers. That doesn't do much for my blood pressure, but at least it serves to remind me that they're not all as self-righteous as George Soros, as fatuous as Michael Moore, as smarmy as Jimmy Carter, as shrill as Nancy Pelosi, as hypocritical as George Murtha, Ted Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, or as deceptive as Barack Obama, the fellow with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing. White households had incomes that were two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Hispanics last year, according to data released today by the Census Bureau. White adults were also more likely than black and Hispanic adults to have college degrees and to own their own homes. They were less likely to live in poverty. "Race is so associated with class in the United States that it may not be direct discrimination, but it still...

There is terrorism in Baghdad but a criminal gang problem has also been plaguing our nation's capital. In an officially declared "crime emergency," black criminals had been robbing, assaulting, and even raping tourists in the National Mall area, where the Washington Monument and the World War II and Lincoln Memorials stand. This is an area that had been considered safe and "tourist-friendly." Three young black men were arrested for these crimes, but you could search in vain in the local media for any reference to their skin color. Instead, they were described as "D.C. youths" or just "five people." Stories...

How's this for chilling -- the night before she was shot in Berkeley over the summer, Dartmouth College student Meleia Willis-Starbuck handled the very gun that was used to kill her. That's the story Willis-Starbuck's friend and accused killer Christopher Hollis is telling authorities, and it's one of several new details emerging from the tragic shooting. The 19-year-old Willis-Starbuck, who graduated from Berkeley High School and had just finished her freshman year at Dartmouth, was arguing with a group of UC Berkeley football players and their friends on College Avenue early July 17 and reportedly used her cell phone to...

Seeking Felony Indictment for Puppy’s Torturous Death Target: Paul Howard, DA, Fulton County District Attorney Joshua Molder, age 17, and brother Justin have been accused of Aggravated Cruelty to an animal and two other charges, and are currently jailed without bond. This petition, however, is focused on the Aggravated Cruelty charge. ATLANTA -- Two Atlanta brothers are in custody at the Fulton County jail charged with the torture death of a five-month old puppy and trashing a local apartment complex. Seventeen-year old Joshua Molder and 18-year old Justin Molder are being held without bond. The Molder brothers stand accused of...

MILWAUKEE - Police have arrested one more suspect in the sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl on Milwaukee's north side. A 16-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have already been charged with assisting in the crime and a 40-year-old man is in custody, accused of raping the young victim in a home near n. 6th and Vienna. According to the criminal complaint, the girl says she performed oral sex on as many as 15 boys and had sex with several of them, including the 40-year-old. The 11-year-old girl has HIV. Her mother died of AIDS. The incident sparked community outrage....

Milwaukee police arrested 14,000 people, snagged 200 guns and grabbed 37 pounds of cocaine - all in just three months this summer. Despite such seemingly impressive numbers, crime continues to surge, fueled by what Police Chief Nannette Hegerty calls a "societal crisis" unfolding in neighborhoods gripped by unstable families, few jobs, rampant drug use, teen pregnancy, and topped with a significant dose of anger and hopelessness, the chief said. Faced with such challenges, police can't do it all, she said. "This is a problem bigger than law enforcement," Hegerty said Wednesday. "I think we have a societal crisis." More evidence...

U.S. Census Bureau: Detroit, Nation's Second Poorest CityPOSTED: 12:00 pm EDT August 29, 2006 UPDATED: 12:19 pm EDT August 29, 2006 The U.S. Census Bureau ranks Detroit as the county's second poorest big city. Detroit has 31.4 percent of its residents living in poverty Cleveland took the top spot. Cleveland had 32.4 percent of its 452,200 people living below the poverty level in 2005, according to the American Community Survey released Tuesday. Last year, Cleveland fell to No. 12 on the list. City leaders celebrated when the 2005 survey put the city's poverty level at 23.2 percent, down from the...

ALBANY State Senator Ada Smith has been found guilty of harassment stemming from an altercation with a staffer. The Queens Democrat was accused of throwing hot coffee in a staffer's face at her Albany office in March. She was also accused of pulling a hairpiece from the woman's head. Smith was originally charged with misdemeanor assault, but the charged was reduced to harassment, a violation, in July. Smith will have to pay a $250 fine and any medical expenses for the former staffer, Jennifer Jackson. She will also have to enroll in anger management courses. Jackson says she feels justice...

In this summer of gun deaths, T-shirts promoting violence are popular in the city HAMEEN NURIDDIN is no stranger to what the streets can dish out. He works for the city school district, in the office that is responsible for school safety. It's his office that responds when students are affected by violence in or out of school. That's why Nuriddin was so dismayed when his 16-year-old son, Yusef, brought home a shirt he had recently purchased from Kicks USA in the Quartermaster Plaza, at 22nd Street and Oregon Avenue in South Philly. The white T-shirt has an oozing, blood-red...

Ngoc Le heard his wife’s screams and ran from the back of the wireless store he owns in Camden, New Jersey. His wife was behind the counter, as was a masked man wielding a knife. The man brandished the blade, herding the couple into a back room. Once there, he tied the 28-year old businessman to a chair, then proceeded to rape 22-year old Kelly Le. Once the brutal rape had finished, he slit the couple’s throats, then ran away. There was no 2nd Amendment, no right to own a gun, and Antonio Diaz Reyes got away with murder. That...

It's another bit of bad luck for a Marine who lost an arm and a leg in Iraq. Lance Corporal Mark Beyers was mugged and robbed outside a restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, last month. The Marine from western New York was dining out with his wife, Denise, while finishing up rehabilitation at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As they left the restaurant, five men approached them and asked for a cigarette. Denise Beyers tells The Buffalo News they gave the men a cigarette -- but the men grabbed her purse, kicked her and knocked the couple to the ground....

Actress/singer Jada Pinkett Smith is horrified by increasing gun crime in the United States, declaring the country must look to third world countries to rediscover its values. The Wicked Wisdom frontwoman and her actor/rapper husband Will Smith have travelled to Africa on several occasions for charity work and have been humbled by citizens' appreciation of the basic things in life - like education. The Smiths will fund and appear at Charles 'Charlie Mack' Alston's annual Party 4 Peace in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this weekend, which aims to raise awareness of street crime. Pinkett Smith says: "It's pretty bad everywhere. I think...

A rap song sparked a nightclub shooting between rival gangs that had declared a truce to celebrate a birthday, leaving two men dead and four injured, police said. The song — Put Yo Hood Up by Lil' Jon & The East Side Boyz — urges listeners to flash hand signs for their neighborhood and confront rivals. It was played before Sunday's shooting, said Deputy Chief Alfredo Saldaña

NEW ORLEANS - Five people ranging in age from 16 to 19 were killed in a street shooting early Saturday, the most violent crime reported in this slowly repopulating city since Hurricane Katrina hit last August. All were believed to have been gunned down while inside a sport utility vehicle that was found rammed against a utility pole in the Central City neighborhood just outside the central business district. Authorities said they were looking for one or more suspects but did not elaborate. Capt. John Bryson said police think the shootings were either drug-related or some type of retaliation attack....

Courtney Smith figures she heard it nearly every day she was in public school: “Courtney acts white.” “Courtney talks white.” “Courtney thinks she’s all that.” Just because she did well in school and spoke proper English. “The black friends I did have, we were the overachievers,” said Smith, now a 20-year-old journalism major at Norfolk State University who hopes to be a news anchor. “We knew that we 'talked white,’ and we were going to continue doing that. We didn’t care if we were teased.” The “acting white” theory – that some black students are dissuaded from trying their hardest...

NEW ORLEANS - Mayor Ray Nagin, whose shoot-from-the-hip style was both praised and scorned after Hurricane Katrina, narrowly won re-election over Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on Saturday in the race to oversee one of the biggest rebuilding projects in U.S. history. "We are ready to take off. We have citizens around the country who want to come back to the city of New Orleans, and we're going to get them all back," Nagin said in a joyful victory speech that took on the tone of Sunday sermon. "If we are unified there is nothing we cannot do," he said. "It's...

Four Kennedy High School students were charged Thursday in an assault on a Kennedy senior who was pummeled in the school auditorium in front of scores of students and who, witnesses said, was attacked with feces later found strewn across the auditorium floor. Teachers and students were horrified by the incident, which left the victim, an 18-year-old honor student, with a broken nose, two black eyes, abrasions on both eyes and a swollen cheek, according to his father. "For these [attackers] to do what they did is beyond disgusting,'' said one teacher who asked for anonymity. "No kid should go...