James Clyburn dismisses Tim Scott's historic Senate victory in South Carolina

On Tuesday night Tim Scott became the first African American elected to the US Senate from South Carolina. An unimpressed Rep.James Clyburn , a black congressman made the following statement to the Washington Post dismissing the victory.

If you call progress electing a person with the pigmentation that he has, who votes against the interest and aspirations of 95 percent of the black people in South Carolina, then I guess that’s progress.

[SOURCE] Examples of Clyburn's statement would include Scott getting an F on the NAACP annual scorecard. Voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he voted to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress, opposed the Congressional Black Caucus’s budget proposal and voted to delay funding a settlement between the United States and black farmers who alleged that the federal government refused them loans because of their race

Tim Scott: First African American elected to US Senate from S.C.

[SOURCE] U.S. Sen. Tim Scott on Tuesday became the first African-American elected to the Senate from South Carolina and the first black elected to a statewide office since Reconstruction.

Scott, a Republican, defeated his black Democratic challenger, Joyce Dickerson of Columbia, and Tega Cay's Jill Bossi, a candidate in the newly formed American Party, according to The Associated Press.

Mia Love: First black republican female elected to Congress

Republican Mia Love defeated her Democratic opponent Doug Owens in the race to represent Utah's 4th congressional district, the AP reported early Wednesday.

With that win, Love becomes the first black woman Republican elected to Congress.

Bonnie Watson Coleman: First African-American female elected to congress from NJ

[SOURCE] Bonnie Watson Coleman will become the first African-American female member of New Jersey's congressional delegation in state history.

The Democratic state Assemblywoman from Mercer County beat Republican Alieta Eck, a doctor, to win the open seat in central Jersey's 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the Associated Press.

Vote today 11-04-2014

Today's mid-term elections are important so go VOTE! This election can effect all aspects of your life so you owe it to yourself and/or your family to go vote.

Will blacks vote for democrats who run away from President Obama?

Let's be honest here. If democrats want to hold onto the Senate, they need to win the black vote overwhelmingly. While many pundits and talking heads have focused on this, they have not mentioned the fact that black voters in some states are making a tough choice. They have a choice to make, stay home, vote republican or vote for a democratic candidate that willingly distances themselves from President Obama.

In states like Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Kentucky and Alaska democratic candidates have asked the president to stay home and not help with their campaigns. Some like Kay Hagan in North Carolina have gone as far as attacking President Obama's handling of Ebola. In Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes won't even say if she voted for President Obama.

Some back voters are publicly asking why they should support candidates that don't support the president. Obama himself has made the rounds on black radio to counter that type of thinking. He is trying to remind us that many of those same Dems distancing themselves have supported him in the past. He is trying to make his case to African American voters as to why they need to come out and vote for these democrats because he believes that the alternative is a lot worse.

So, what will you do? Will you vote democratic on Tuesday, vote republican, or stay home?

Sister2Sister Magazine files for bankruptcy

Sister2Sister, a women's magazine that focuses on black Hollywood, has filed for bankruptcy protection and put the print edition on hiatus so it can focus on its website, publisher Jamie Foster Brown told Journal-isms.

Brown, a onetime secretary to Black Entertainment Television co-founder Robert Johnson, is described on the magazine website describes her as "The Barbara Walters of Print," said Monday that she was preparing an official statement on the publication's status. She is publisher and sole owner of the magazine.

"The community does not want us to go away," Brown said by telephone. She said she especially felt a responsibility to prisoners who "didn't have a voice" and whom she published in the magazine. "We wanted to teach people through celebrities," she said. "God comes through other people." Working with Johnson, she said, "I saw how much power the celebrities have."

Read more: Sister2Sister Magazine Files for Bankruptcy

The Fight — and the Right — to Vote

TV host Bill Moyer talks with attorney Sherrilyn Ifill , president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund about the ongoing vote suppression controversy. Watch that interview below:

Charles Barkley Goes Off on ‘Unintelligent’ Black People

Charles Barkley had some pretty tough words on the radio this week for “unintelligent” African-Americans who seem a bit too eager to attack other black people for not being supposedly black enough. During an appearance on Afternoons with Anthony Gargano and Rob Ellis, Barkley was asked to react to a report this week that teammates of Seattle Seahawks player Russell Wilson don’t think he’s black enough. This really set off Barkley. Listen to his brutally honest comments below:

'Ebola racism': how the world is discriminating against Africans

Increasing anxiety and fear over the Ebola virus has led to what many commentators have dubbed "Ebola racism".

"People are being shunned and mocked for having visited, or even for simply having been born in, Africa – and anywhere in Africa will do, afflicted with Ebola or not," writes The Intercept's Andrew Jones.

He argues that the "hysteria" surrounding the virus in the West is an example of "ignorant discrimination that immigrants in general and Africans specifically have endured for decades".

So, how are Africans being discriminated against?

Read more: 'Ebola racism': how the world is discriminating against Africans

Warren Ballentine convicted of mortgage fraud

A suburban Chicago lawyer who hosted a syndicated radio talk show has been found guilty of mortgage fraud in a scheme to defraud lenders out of nearly $10 million.

A federal jury took less than an hour Friday to find Warren Ballentine guilty.

Ballentine was accused of conspiring to secure more than two dozen fraudulent mortgage loans.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports prosecutors showed Ballentine, who broadcast from Durham, North Carolina, and others used straw buyers to secure mortgages on 28 properties they never intended to live in.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros told jurors loan applications Ballentine submitted were "shot through with lies."

Defense attorney Lewis Myers says the verdict against Ballentine will be appealed.

The 43-year-old's radio show was broadcast online after being dropped from syndication last year.

Will Muriel E. Bowser get enough black support to become the next mayor of Washington D.C.?

*NOTE: a recent Washington Post poll shows Bowser with a 12 point lead.

As the only African American Democrat in the District’s mayoral race, Bowser is counting on resounding support from black voters, who account for nearly half the city’s population. Just last week, President Obama, the country’s highest-ranking Democrat and preeminent black politician, endorsed her campaign.

Yet as the race hurtles into its final days, interviews with Democratic activists, community leaders and voters suggest that the city’s African American electorate is far more fragmented than in previous elections, when it largely coalesced around a single candidate.

With polls suggesting a tightened race, the consequences of that splintering could be crucial, particularly for Bowser, who is also vying with Catania and Schwartz for white votes.

Read more: For black voters in D.C.’s mayoral election, this time the choice isn’t so clear

A new Static Shock series is on the way!

Warner Brothers has announced the launch of a new digital division, named Blue Ribbon Content. Among the new series in development is a live action version of the comic book, Static Shock.

Writer/producer/director Reginald Hudlin (Best Picture Oscar nominee for producing Django Unchained) leads the creative team behind a live-action adaptation of Static Shock, featuring the African-American super hero Static, aka Virgil Ovid Hawkins. Static Shock is based on the Static comic co-created by the late Dwayne McDuffie with co-writer Robert L. Washington III and artist John Paul Leon, which was originally published by the DC Comics imprint Milestone Comics and, later, by DC Comics. Milestone Media co-founder/comic book artist/TV producer Denys Cowan (the original Static Shock animated series) is collaborating with Hudlin on the new Static Shock

Possible serial killer arrested in Gary Indiana

An Indiana man told police he "messed up" by killing a woman in Hammond, then came clean, leading them to several more bodies in nearby Gary, Hammond Police Chief John Doughty said Monday. Doughty stopped short of calling Darren Deon Vann a suspected serial killer, but left the possibility open if police are able to connect the convicted sex offender to any of the six women found in Gary over the weekend. Watch more below:

Support the movie "Dear White People"

The movie Dear White People has been given a limited release this weekend. Some of you may have already heard about it online but I'm sure most have not as the movie has not been widely publicized.The movie is a satire about "being a black face in a white place". Check out the trailer, a synopsis and the cities where it is playing at below:

Here's the trailer.

Here's a synopsis of the movie:

Winner of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent, Dear White People is a sly, provocative satire of race relations in the age of Obama. Writer/director Justin Simien follows a group of African American students as they navigate campus life and racial politics at a predominantly white college in a sharp and funny feature film debut that earned him a spot on Variety's annual "10 Directors to Watch." When Dear White People screened at MOMA's prestigious New Directors/New Films, the New York Times' A.O. Scott wrote, "Seeming to draw equal measures of inspiration from Whit Stillman and Spike Lee, but with his own tart, elegant sensibility very much in control, Mr. Simien evokes familiar campus stereotypes only to smash them and rearrange the pieces."

The unexpected election of activist Samantha White (Tessa Thompson) as head of a traditionally black residence hall sets up a college campus culture war that challenges conventional notions of what it means to be black. While Sam leverages her notoriety as host of the provocative and polarizing radio show "Dear White People" to try to prevent the college from diversifying Armstrong Parker House, outgoing head-of-house Troy Fairbanks (Brandon P. Bell), son of the university's dean (Dennis Haysbert), defies his father's lofty expectations by applying to join the staff of Pastiche, the college's influential humor magazine. Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Williams), an Afro-sporting sci-fi geek, is recruited by the otherwise all-white student newspaper to go undercover and write about black culture—a subject he knows little about—while the aggressively assimilated Coco Conners (Teyonah Parris) tries to use the controversy on campus to carve out a career in reality TV.

But no one at Winchester University is prepared for Pastiche's outrageous, ill-conceived annual Halloween party, with its "unleash your inner Negro" theme throwing oil on an already smoldering fire of resentment and misunderstanding. When the party descends into riotous mayhem, everyone must choose a side.

Dear White People is written, directed and produced by Justin Simien. The film stars Tyler James Williams ("Everybody Hates Chris," Peeples), Tessa Thompson (For Colored Girls, "Veronica Mars"), Kyle Gallner (A Nightmare on Elm Street, CBGB), Teyonah Parris ("Mad Men," They Came Together), Brandon P. Bell ("Hollywood Heights"), Malcolm Barrett (The Hurt Locker), Brittany Curran ("Chicago Fire"), Marque Richardson ("The Newsroom") and Dennis Haysbert ("24," Far From Heaven).

Here is where the movie is currently playing:

Atlanta

Phipps Plaza 14 3500 Peachtree Rd NE Atlanta, GA 30326

Midtown Art Cinemas 8 931 Monroe Dr NE C212 Atlanta, GA 30308

Atlantic Station Stadium 18 261 19th St NW #1250 Atlanta, GA 30363

Los Angeles

Century City 15 10250 Santa Monica Blvd #2000 Los Angeles, CA 90067

Arclight Hollywood 15 6360 W Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90028

Rave Crenshaw Plaza 15 4020 Marlton Avenue Los Angeles CA 90008

New York City

AMC Lincoln Square 13 1998 Broadway New York, NY 10023

Union Square Stadium 14‎ 850 Broadway New York, NY 10003

Washington D.C.

Magic Johnson Capital Center 12 800 Shoppers Way Largo, MD 20774

Gallery Place Stadium 14 701 7th St NW Washington, DC 20001

Georgetown 14 3111 K St NWWashington, DC 20007

Learn more about the movie at: http://www.dearwhitepeoplemovie.com/

Kofi Annan: Ebola neglected because it started in Africa

Wealthy countries were slow to tackle the Ebola epidemic as it began in Africa, former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said in tough criticism of the response to the crisis on Thursday.

"I am bitterly disappointed by the response... I am disappointed in the international community for not moving faster," Annan told the flagship BBC programme Newsnight.

"If the crisis had hit some other region it probably would have been handled very differently. In fact when you look at the evolution of the crisis, the international community really woke up when the disease got to America and Europe."

Read more: Kofi Annan: Ebola neglected because it started in Africa

Pres. Obama: Democratic Voters ‘Aren’t Even Thinking’ About Midterms

[ SOURCE: THE HILL] A “whole bunch” of Democratic voters “aren’t even thinking about these elections coming up,” President Obama fretted during an interview with radio host Steve Harvey on Wednesday.

“We really need to have the kind of Congress that is serious about the issues that matter to folks and the responsibility is ultimately on everybody who’s listening,” Obama said. “Folks like to complain, talk about Washington — if only 45, 40 percent of the people are voting, it’s not surprising Congress isn’t responsive.”

Obama’s appearance on the show, which has a heavily black audience, came as the White House began accelerating its campaign efforts ahead of the midterm elections.

Obama repeatedly implored the radio audience “to really pay attention to this thing.”

“I need everybody listening to understand this is really, really important,” Obama said. “I need everybody’s help. This is the last election I’m involved in that really makes a difference.”

He added, “African-American voters, young voters, progressive voters, Latino voters — they now vote at relatively high rates during presidential elections,” but as a result of their failure to show up in 2010, “the Tea Party took over the Republican Party.”

“This election coming up gives everybody out there the ability to change Congress. … I’ve got to have a Congress that can work with me,” Obama added. “That is why this midterm is so important.”

Second Texas nurse has Ebola

A second Texas nurse who had contracted Ebola flew on a commercial flight from Ohio to Texas with a slight temperature the day before she was diagnosed, health officials said on Wednesday, raising new concerns about U.S. efforts to control the disease.

Chances that other passengers on the plane were infected were very low, but the nurse should not have been traveling on the flight, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden told reporters.

The woman, Amber Vinson, 29, was isolated immediately after reporting a fever on Tuesday, Texas Department of State Health Services officials said. She had treated Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died of Ebola and was the first patient diagnosed with the virus in the United States.

Read more: New Texas nurse with Ebola had slight fever on airliner

Some blame racism, but could anger be the cause of Eric Duncan's death?

In the days following the death of Eric Duncan due to Ebola, many have questioned whether his race played a role in how he was treated while in the hospital. Many have pointed out how white patients were given experimental drugs or blood transfusions from recovered Ebola patients as evidence that racism may have played a part in Duncan's death.

My question is could it be something other than racism. Could it be that doctors and nurses were angry at Duncan for coming back into the United States knowing that he may be sick and thus endangering them all? Could they have reacted to that fact consciously or more likely subconsciously and not treated Duncan as well as they could have?

I know that those in the medical field are professionals and claim to adhere to high ethical standards but they are human. And like with have recently with police officers high standards doesn't stop them from doing wrong. So do you think that anger may have played more a role than racism in Eric Duncan's death, or that he was just treated too late?

Sen. Rand Paul talks to black leaders in Ferguson.

After meeting with NAACP leaders in Ferguson, Missouri, Sen. Rand Paul told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the Republicans Party's biggest mistake in recent decades has been not reaching out to African-American voters. Watch that segment of the interview below: