Congressional Black Caucus Members Under Investigation

The Washington Post is reporting that House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry

Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane staff writers with the Washington Post are reporting the a number of members of the Congressional Black Caucus are being investigated for defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

Rep. Charles Rangel . (AP Photo)

The document also disclosed that ethics committee staff members have interviewed House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) about one element of the complex investigation of his personal finances, as well as the lawmaker's top aide and his son.

Rangel said he spoke with ethics committee staff members regarding a conference that he and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended last November in St. Martin. The trip initially was said to be sponsored by a nonprofit foundation run by a newspaper. But the three-day event, at a luxury resort, was underwritten by major corporations such as Citigroup, Pfizer and AT&T. Rules passed in 2007, shortly after Democrats reclaimed the majority following a wave of corruption cases against Republicans, bar private companies from paying for congressional travel.

According to Wapo Rangel said he has not discussed other parts of the investigation of his finances with the committee. "I'm waiting for that, anxiously," he said.

There is more.. According to Wapo, Politico, and The LA Times, the committee did not detail the two newly disclosed investigations. However, according to the July document, Rep. Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, came under scrutiny because of activities involving OneUnited Bank of Massachusetts, in which her husband owns at least $250,000 in stock. Waters arranged a September 2008 meeting at the Treasury Department where OneUnited executives asked for government money. In December, Treasury selected OneUnited as an early participant in the bank bailout program, injecting $12.1 million.

AAPP: Voters in their congressional districts need to take a hard look at these Corrupt Congressional Black Caucus members. It just may be time to throw these folks out of office. I know if any of them were representing me, I would vote them out of office in a heartbeat. I guess Cathy Hughes would do the same thing. If I were Obama I would not meet with the Congressional Black Caucus until they stop standing up for crooks, get there act together and purged those who bring the group into disgrace.

I'm also getting a bit tired of these Congressional ethics inquiries, that have been dragging on for sometime despite vows to end corruption.

I guess I can understand why some democrats are worried that one of their own could cost them their jobs.

Tasers, Taser International and messages of the Heart

Well it looks like Taser International has said Uncle. The Makers of TASER devices say don't aim at chest. As reported by many bloggers, including the Electronic Village, news outlets and internet sources, Taser maker Taser International is advising police agencies across the nation to avoid aiming the devices at a suspect’s chest. The Arizona-based company says such action poses an “extremely low” risk of an “adverse cardiac event.” The Atlanta Journal reports that Law enforcement in Atlanta, Gwinnett and Clayton County said they are in the process of scheduling training for their officers who carry Tasers.

“It won’t be a huge change. It’s a difference of a few inches,” said Sgt. Tony Kessler, a training officer for the Clayton County Sheriff. “We still have the back and other parts of the body.”

Gwinnett Police spokesman Cpl. David Schiralli said the Taser manufacturer only “recommended aiming lower towards the abdominal region,” but said the 279 officers who have Tasers will be retrained.

Cobb County Police are already ahead of the game, spokesman Officer Joe Hernandez said. Cobb’s 100 Tasers are carried by only veteran patrol officers, the Tactical Team, Burglary Apprehension Team and robbery interdiction squad. More HERE

The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, marks the first time that Taser has suggested any risk of ill effects on the heart from the use of its 50,000-volt stun guns. More HERE

Electronic Village reports, Taser International, the maker of taser guns is advising police officers to avoid shooting suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose an extremely low risk of an "adverse cardiac event."

The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, marks the first time that Taser has suggested any risk of ill effects on the heart from the use of its 50,000-volt taser guns.

Electronic Village goes on to report that critics, including civil-rights lawyers and human-rights advocates, called the training bulletin an admission by Taser that its guns could cause cardiac arrest. For years, Taser officials have said in interviews, court cases and government hearings that the stun gun is incapable of inducing ventricular fibrillation, the chaotic heart rhythm characteristic of a heart attack. More HERE There have been more than 400 deaths in the U.S. and 26 in Canada since 2001, according to a study by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Tasers have contributed to more than 30 of those deaths, according to medical examiners.

Three of those occurred in the Gwinnett County jail after deputies used a Taser on combative inmates. Autopsies showed two of those deaths were the result of heart attacks, but did not cite what caused the cardiac arrest. The other death was ruled the result of “excited delirium” – a combination of cocaine, alcohol and physical exertion that excited his heart too much, according to the medical examiner.

A spokeswoman for the Gwinnett sheriff said Taser International's training bulletin has already been sent out to all of the deputies who carry Tasers. More HERE

"All future training will have it incorporated too," sheriff's spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais said Thursday.

The Publisher of the Tasered While Black Blog said: "Well it looks like this announcement by Taser International is having major impact on law enforcement standard operating procedures. Let's see if it make any difference on the streets of Amderica, or will cops actually aim at the chest in the future, as a way of killing people."

Boulder, Colorado ACLU wants Tasers holstered

New Guidelines For APD On Taser Gun Use - Albuquerque News Story

Metro Police Change Taser Policy

Police rethink stun-gun policy

Read more on tasering at the following blogs.

• Police Brutality Blog
• Electronic Village
• a. cameron ward & company, barristers and solicitors
• canadian civil rights movement
• cbc - a deadly landing
• cbc - taser database
• cbc - taser tests
• cbc - the truth about tasers
• charly miller - tasers
• creekside
• don't tase me bro
• educate-yourself
• electronic village
• evidunce (new)
• excited-delirium
• feral cops (new)
• getting it right
• it all goes here
• no more tasers
• petition - outlaw law enforcement use of tasers
• prevent dangerous harm
• RAIDH (France)
• setting fantino straight
• stat - stop taser abuse today
• taser nation
• taser org uk
• tasered while black
• tasered while latino (new)
• taserfilm (new)
• taserwatch
• the duck shoot - taser-watch (new)
• the taser deaths blog
• Taser of The Day/
• Gizmodo
• Truth Not Tasers
• Taser Watch
• Excited-Delirium

The lack of a "black agenda" in America

There is a great article in the LA Times regarding the The lack of a black agenda.

The writer, Erin Aubry Kaplan writes about how Barack Obama finally showed up.


Erin Aubry Kaplan writes; On the centennial anniversary of the NAACP last month, the president took the microphone at the organization's convention in New York and, for the first time since his inauguration, spoke directly to black Americans.

Noting that it was "good to be among friends," he went on to deliver a clear, sometimes informal and impassioned speech on the state of the race -- his race. He unselfconsciously used the terms "us" and "we." He charted the victories of the black past and described the present as much more paradoxical: Civil rights was the battle of the previous generation, he said, but persistent inequality is the fight of the present one. He even said that American society suffers from "structural inequality," a phrase loathed by conservatives and plenty of liberals too.

The appreciative audience shouted amens and hooted with pride. It was in part because of the work of the NAACP, Obama acknowledged, that he was able to stand before the organization on its 100th birthday as the 44th president of the United States, an astonishing development.

And yet, today, the fate of black folk is far from certain and is in some ways less secure than at any time in the last 100 years. Why? Blacks don't have an agenda. They have no lobby. More HERE

AAPP:
I have been talking about this issue on my Blog Talk Radio Program and on this blog for some time. But I'm not the only one. The Black Agenda Report has been addressing the need for a Black Agenda for some time. I urge all of my readers to take visit and read The Black Agenda Report. They address many of the issues, Erin Aubry Kaplan writes about in his article.

Check out these other articles:

• Post-racial America? Dream on|guardian.co.uk
• President Obama on what black America needs|cnn.com
• Jackson: Black Leaders Want To Engage More With Obama|huffingtonpost.com

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You can always check out what I have to say about current political issues on my Blog Talk Radio Program.

Barack Obama, Gates, Police and Black Folk

When the President ran for the Presidency he invoked his dear white mother and grandparents to get into power. Threw his former pastor under the bus, and made no commitments to black Americans for their collective vote. Now the president has pissed off the white cops. Instead of Barack Obama pissing them off for a good reason, like shooting black people in the back or tasering black folks while black, he had to say something about his Harvard Buddy.



As reported by MSNBC, many police officers across the country have a message for President Barack Obama: Get all the facts before criticizing one of our own.

Obama's public criticism that Cambridge officers "acted stupidly" when they arrested black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. could make it harder for police to work with people of color, some officers said Thursday. It could even set back the progress in race relations that helped Obama become the nation's first African-American president, they said.

"What we don't need is public safety officials across the country second-guessing themselves," said David Holway, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which represents 15,000 public safety officials around the country. "The president's alienated public safety officers across the country with his comments." More HERE

AAPP: Many in the Brotherhood of Police Officers have alienated and abused black folks for years. Whites have wanted to politically dig into Obama for some time, he has given them the opportunity with his support of Louis Gates over police in this issue. Here is what Barack obama had to say:

Obama was asked about Gates' arrest at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night and began his response by saying Gates was a friend and he didn't have all the facts.

"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry," Obama said. "No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3 — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."

AAPP: Why can't Barack Obama ever talk about black people, without including some other group? Why don't Gates and Obama get it? Just because you have a Doctorate degree or Law degree from Harvard "your still black in America." Maybe, just maybe, The President should be supporting the "voiceless" blacks who have been abused, shot, tasered and killed by police, rather than supporting a man who already has a voice, and get's paid well, to express his opinion on how he feels white police act towards black people. It's interesting how black elitist Louis Gates and President Barack Obama, are all of a sudden one of us common black folk.

When do we begin to hold people accountable? Who should be held accountable? Should it be the Police who are seeking an Obama apology? I guess Obama's honeymoon period with the American people is over. What do you think?

More about this issue on African American Political Pundit.com

Louis Gates, Barack Obama, Black Nationalism and Black Elitism

My first reaction when I heard about the incident about Louis Gates was you got to be kidding me. I like many bloggers were not a happy campers. I like many was feeling sorry for Henry Louis Gates. I thought like many black folks that the Cambridge Police had gone over the line. There were a number of bloggers who raised questions early about Louis Gates motives.

Some Black conservatives and conservative bloggers are decoding the Henry Louis Gates Jr. Arrest and asking...Why did Louis Gates have to yell, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?

For me, I respected Louis Gates until I read my own home town newspaper, The Boston Globe, and read how Louis Gates, 58, the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research attacked black nationalism and is now into the black us (Harvard Educated) vs them (Black Nationalist) politics.

Now his "Harvard University buddy, President Barack Obama is coming out regarding his arrest in Cambridge, Mass. More HERE

I have lost a tad bit of respect for Gates and Obama. They only talk "Black" when the "black Harvard crowd" get what average black folks with no "Haravrd degrees" get everyday. If you have a dregree from a lowly HBCU, State College or heaven forbid no degree, you get no respect in "President Obama's Fantasy Post Racial America."

I wish Barack Obama showed Outrage when black folks got murdered by police, like the 73-year-old black.. and everyone knows race was a factor in the police shooting of unarmed elderly grandfather who what shot in cold blood in that small town in Homer Louisiana. Or the black guy that got shot in the back by the Oakland Transit Authority? Let's not even talk about black man that get shot and killed by police and was shot 12 times from behind. No that crime by police was not the Harvard type of crime, it was not politically sexy, Oh, has President Barack Obama even been down to New Orleans? Don't get me started...

Get this, Gates said that as a man who is “half white,’’ who was married to a white woman for more than two decades, and whose children are part white, “I don’t walk around calling white people racist. . . . Nobody knows me as some lunatic black nationalist who’s walking around beating up on white people. This is just not my profile.’’

AAPP: WTF! "Half White" WTF! Married to a white woman for more than two decades, and whose children are part white! What lunatic black nationalist who’s walking around beating up on white people is this guy talking about? Why is Louis Gates creating (as blogtalkradio host Black Achievement noted, a boogie men for whites? Black nationalist are bad, I'm one of you. Why you treating me like this? I Married a white woman for more than two decades, and my children are part white, why would you do this to me? I'm one of you.

Negro Please!

Why is Gates and and President Barack Obama playing this elitist black thing?

Ask yourself why Barack Obama is sticking up from his Harvard buddy, but cannot say one damn thing about a black man who got shot in the back in Oakland or black folks who get tasered to death while black. I don't get how President Obama, could be weighing in on the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr but cannot even speak about the attack on black America since he has been elected.

Get this Barack Obama said last night that Cambridge police “acted stupidly’’ when they handcuffed Gates even after he showed proof that he lived in the house. Obama scolds Cambridge police.

Police acted 'stupidly' in Gates arrest, Obama says - sounds like black elitism to me ... Now all of a sudden, Henry Louis Gates Jr is one of the “1 Million Black Men In Jail. Whatever!

Read more at African American Political Pundit.com

There are a lot of thoughts from all corners from the blog theBlack Snob to many others.

What are do you think? What are your thoughts?

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Dallas Police Officer Should Be Fired!

AAPP: More heartless bullying of black men by police, again ... caught on tape. This time it's Police delaying an NFL player from seeing his dying mother-In-Law. The NY Times says it best when they said, a Dallas police officer makes death even worse. The Dallas News is also on point when they write, Editorial: Dallas cop doesn't deserve his badge.

As reported by the Associated Press, A Dallas police officer was put on desk duty after pulling over an NFL player rushing to see his dying mother-in-law in the hospital and holding him in the hospital parking lot as she died. Dallas Police Officer Robert Powell stopped Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats' SUV outside Baylor Regional Medical Center during the early hours of March 18 after Moats rolled through a red light.

The Dallas Morning News provides an unedited Dallas police dashboard camera video shows traffic stop of NFL player Ryan Moats. The Dallas Morning News provides the nearly 17-minute video shows the entire incident involving Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats and Dallas police officer Robert Powell. Moats was rushing his wife and two of her family members to a hospital, where his mother-in-law lay dying. She died while Moats and his wife's grandfather waited outside the hospital for the officer to issue a ticket. Edited

Moats and his family had gotten a call saying his mother-in-law was dying.
Video from a dashboard camera inside the officer's vehicle, obtained by Dallas-Fort Worth station WFAA-TV, revealed an intense exchange in which the officer threatened to jail Moats.
He ordered Moats' wife, Tamishia Moats, to get back in the SUV, but she ignored him and rushed inside the hospital to see her mother, Jonetta Collinsworth, 45, and was by her side when she died a short time later. She had breast cancer.

"Get in there," said Powell, yelling at 27-year-old Tamishia Moats, as she exited the car. "Let me see your hands!"

"Excuse me, my mom is dying," Tamishia Moats said. "Do you understand?"

Moats explained that he waited until there was no traffic before proceeding through the red light and that his mother-in-law was dying, right then.

Moats couldn't find his insurance paperwork, and was desperate to leave.
"Listen, if I can't verify you have insurance...," Officer Powell said. "My mother-in-law is dying," Moats interrupted.

As they argued, the officer got irritated. "Shut your mouth," the officer said. "You can either settle down and cooperate or I can just take you to jail for running a red light."
By the time the 26-year-old NFL player received a ticket and a lecture from Powell, 25, at least 13 minutes had passed.

When he and Collinsworth's father entered the hospital, they learned Collinsworth was dead, The Dallas Morning News reported in today's editions.
The Moatses, who are black, said they can't help but think that race might have played a part in how Powell, who is white, treated them.

"I think he should lose his job," said Ryan Moats, a Dallas native.

Powell was placed on disptach duty pending an investigation. The ticket issued to Moats was dismissed, Lt. Andy Harvey told WFAA-TV.

"There were some things that were said that were disturbing, to say the least," he told the Dallas Morning News.

Powell told police officials he believed he was doing his job, said Dallas Police Assistant Chief Floyd Simpson.

AAPP: What do you think should happen to this cops job? Should he be fired? Was he just doing his job?

Cross posted at African American Political Pundit.com

Is Massachusetts Ready To Steal The Stimulus Money?

AAPP: In my home town, of Boston, Massachusetts, the crooks and liars are ready to steal the stimulus money. As reported by The Boston Globe, The real estate developer chosen by Governor Deval Patrick to distribute billions of dollars in federal stimulus money has been receiving a state pension ever since he was fired from his job at a state development agency in 1995, according to state records.

Jeffrey A. Simon, 58, was tapped by the governor on Wednesday to the newly created job of director of infrastructure investment, which will pay him $150,000 a year. The governor promptly posted a summary of Simon's résumé on his website after the appointment, listing a distinguished career as a real estate specialist in government and the private sector, with expertise in redeveloping military bases.

But what the résumé posting did not say was that Simon was terminated in 1995 from his state job overseeing the redevelopment of Fort Devens.

The governor and his staff also did not disclose that, under a Massachusetts pension law intended to protect patronage hires from retribution, his firing entitled him to begin collecting an enhanced state pension while he was in his mid-40s.

Simon could not be reached for comment. His retirement records do not include a reason for his dismissal from the agency where he worked in the mid-1990s, the Massachusetts Government Land Bank. His official résumé suggests he left the Land Bank because he was recruited for a similar job by the government of Bermuda.

A spokesman for Patrick, Joe Landolfi, provided a statement last night that said the administration knew Simon had departed state government. The statement did not address the questions of Simon's pension or his dismissal from the agency, however.

"Mr. Simon was fully vetted prior to being offered the position of director of infrastructure investment. He disclosed that he retired from state service more than a decade ago," Landolfi said. "He is eminently qualified to serve in this critical role, and we are confident he will successfully ensure federal stimulus funds are invested responsibly and transparently."

State retirement records show that Simon has been paid $29,000 to $32,000 a year since December 1995 with his enhanced, early pension. He has collected $403,751.84 in all, according to state records.

Simon will forgo the pension payments while he serves in his new state job, according to administration officials. More HERE

I guess Black Agenda Report was right. Black Folks will get the short end regarding the Stimulus Package. As The Black Agenda Report noted, Obama's economic stimulus plan is built around "shovel-ready" projects already vetted by the states. That means "Mississippi will be enabled to do more of what Mississippi always does." More HERE

Note: Let's include northern Mississippi in the equation, Massachusetts.

More political report and discussion at: African American Political Pundit.com

Who will hold Governor Deval Patrick accountable?