Underground Journal of Initiation

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READ THIS AND THANK GOD WE CAN RID OURSELVES OF THESE POLITICAL PESTS! WASHINGTON: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was gracious in her full-throated endorsement of Senator Barack Obama. But that does not mean all is forgiven by others in the Clinton universe. For proof, look no further than Doug Band, chief gatekeeper to former President Bill Clinton. Band keeps close track of the past allies and beneficiaries of the Clintons who supported Obama's campaign, three Clinton associates and campaign officials said. Indeed, he is widely known as a member of the Clinton inner circle whose memory is particularly acute on the matter of who has been there for the couple — and who has not. read the full story... It appears they are no longer worthy of leadership....and God continues to bless the America that is becoming..

GIMME SOME TRUTH - WE NOW KNOW WHY HILLARY IS STAYING IN THE RACE? - HOUSTON CHRONICLE MICHAEL GOODWIN - "SAY GOODNIGHT HILLARY, AND GO AWAY." - DAILY NEWS

PETER BEINART - WHAT OBAMA OWES THE CLINTONS (BESIDES A STIFF KICK IN THE PANTS) - TIME

KEVIN MERIDA - RACISTS INCIDENTS GIVE SOME OBAMA CAMPAIGNERS PAUSE - WASHINGTON POST JOHN JUDIS - THE BIG RACE - THE NEW REPUBLIC ROBERT ROBB - WHY OBAMA WILL WIN THE BLUE COLLAR VOTE IN NOVEMBER - ARIZONA REPUBLIC

DAVID BROOKS - COMBAT AND COMPOSURE - NEW YORK TIMES MASSIMO CALEBRESI - OBAMA'S 'ELECTABILITY' CODE FOR RACE? - TIME BACON AND KORNBLUT - CLINTON AIDES DOUBTFUL ABOUT FUTURE - WASHINGTON POST MIKE ALLEN - THE NIGHT THE MUSIC DIED - AND THE GENERAL ELECTION BEGAN - POLITICO DICK MORRIS - IT'S ALL OVER, SEN. CLINTON - DICKMORRIS.COM

As you take a look at the final ads from the Obama and Clinton campaigns for the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, which ad inspires you? Hillary Clinton's Spoke Out Barack Obama's Minute ht: the primary source “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” -- Guess who?

JOE ANDREW HAS BEEN QUOTED SAYING, "The same words will come out of the [Clinton] surrogates' mouths to attack me that the Republicans used — and that demonstrates the very hypocrisy of the old politics..."

What will happen if the major Democratic voting bloc discovers this tactic's existence? Would the Democratic party risk a backlash similar to what happened in South Carolina occurring nationally?

OTTUMWA, IA -- Iowa police arrested a man outside the hotel where Barack Obama spent Tuesday night after the man was confronted by Obama's Secret Service detail. Ottumwa Police Lieutenant Tom McAndrew said Davit Zakaryan, of Cincinnati, Oh., was charged with illegally possessing a concealed knife more than 8 inches long after he was arrested for failing to produce a drivers license Wednesday morning. link

Gary Gagliardi A couple of posts ago, we covered Sun Tzu’s idea that strategic positions are largely built from perceptions. It isn’t what a strategic position IS that matters, but what people THINK that it is. We often fail because we buy into the positions of our opponents without challenging them. A good recent example of this is President’s Bush’s reaction to the Democrats accusing him of wrong-doing in firing some prosecutors for political reasons. People don’t even realize it when they subconsciously accept opposing positions. In Bush’s case, he is assuming that he MUST deny firing prosecutors for political reasons because doing so is somehow wrong. What would have happened if he when challenged that position? He could have just admitted it: “Yes, I fired the prosecutors because they were not pursing the policies of this administration and, yes, those policies are to some degree political. People elected me partly to make sure certain laws were enforced in certain ways. If my pro...

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos Reports: A source close to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., says his presidential campaign raised more than $30 million during the second quarter, which ended yesterday. That figure tops Obama's haul during the first quarter of the year, when he reported raising $25.8 million. Official figures have not yet been released by Obama's rivals for the Democratic nomination, although the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., had said it expected to raise about $27 million during the quarter, and the campaign of former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., had publicly set a goal of $9 million. Helpful link: Obama outraises Hillary by at least $10 million dollars

In his new book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore pleads, "We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth." Gore repeatedly asks that science and reason displace cynical political posturing as the central focus of public discourse. If Gore really means what he writes, he has an opportunity to make a difference by leading by example on the issue of global warming. A cooperative and productive discussion of global warming must be open and honest regarding the science. Global warming threats ought to be studied and mitigated, and they should not be deliberately exaggerated as a means of building support for a desired political position. Many of the assertions Gore makes in his movie, ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' have been refuted by science, both before and after he made them. Gore ca...

London - UNDERCOVER trading standards officers have found skin products with dangerous substances available over the counter at five out of six shops they tested in East London. They found Crusader skin lightening cream being sold to the public containing hydroquinone, which has been banned from all products except hair dye since January, 2001, because of serious side-effects. Trading standards officers this week issued a public warning about hydroquinone, which is used to lighten dark areas such as freckles and liver spots. Short-term symptoms include extremely itchy skin and burning, often leading to scars. Long-term use can damage internal organs and result in liver and kidney failure. Crusader cream was also found to contain dangerous levels of mercury. Both hydroquinone and mercury suppress the skin's production of melanin, the pigment that gives skin its colour. the whole story...

Related: Skin Whitening

"When you are lighter, people pay more attention to you. It makes you more important and the rich men find you attractive," the sentiments of an Accra-based woman with light skin and dark knuckles. Yet, the self-hate phenomenon of skin-bleaching is not limited to black women alone. The music fans of men like Michael Jackson and the famous Lumba Brothers, Charles Kwadwo Fosu (Daddy Lumba) and Nana Acheampong, have seen the skin of the stars go lighter and lighter with every album hit. Through multiple surgeries, Michael Jackson has arguably become transracial. Bleaching is often attributed to extreme low self-esteem, and a misplaced desire to be better appreciated. But, there is a growing repugnance within black communities worldwide against bleaching. "Skin Bleaching" is the term applied to the process of cosmetic methods used to whiten the skin. It has for a long time been considered a common practice in dark skinned women in sub-Saharan Africa although increasingl...

SURRY -- The Humane Society is asking Nike to cut ties with NFL quarterback Michael Vick in light of a dogfighting investigation at Vick's Surry County property. Wayne Pacelle, the Humane Society's president, wrote to Mark Parker, Nike president and CEO, to drop Vick as a corporate spokesman. Vick, a Newport News native, plays for the Atlanta Falcons. "We recognize that Mr. Vick has not been charged with a crime. But we know that Nike has high standards for its spokespersons," the letter read. "We trust Nike does not want to be associated with any celebrity who is linked to this odious form of animal cruelty." story continues...

PANAMA CITY -- Until recently, Latin American leaders treated racism as if it were someone else's problem. South American presidents in 2000 even issued a statement condemning its resurgence in "other parts of the world." If Afro-Latin Americans were poorer and less educated than whites, and underrepresented in government or corporations, the thinking went, it was a problem of class, not skin color. Then, a quiet but stunning U-turn. Governments have not only stopped ignoring racism but are drafting anti-discrimination laws, negotiating a tough hemispheric agreement to deter racism despite U.S. skepticism, and counting the number of blacks in their midst -- all moves that activists say are needed to lift the veil of invisibility that has shrouded Afro-Latin Americans for centuries. These advances have not come with the searing drama that marked the U.S. civil rights movement. But for a region where many blacks have long led a marginalized existence, it is heady stuff. ...

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago. The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots. "This administration was colorblind in its incompetence," Obama said at a conference of black clergy, "but the poverty and the hopelessness was there long before the hurricane. "All the hurricane did was to pull the curtain back for all the world to see," he said. Obama's attack on Bush got ovation after ovation from the nearly 8,000 people gathered in Hampton University's Convocation Center, particularly when he denounced the Iraq war and noted that he had opposed it from the outset....

JENA, United States (AFP) - The racial demons of the Old South have resurfaced in a rural Louisiana town where black students who tried to sit on the white side of the school yard were met by three hangmen's nooses dangling from a tree. The students and their parents were outraged by the stark reminder of the mob lynchings which had terrorized Southern US blacks until just a few decades ago. Months of inter-racial violence followed the decision by a white school superintendent to over-rule the principal's recommendation to expel three white students found to have hung the nooses. The community became even more divided after a white prosecutor imposed significantly harsher charges on the black youths caught up in the violence. Related: Racism on trial again in America's Deep South Racial demons rear heads Looking for Justice in Jena, Louisiana Stealth Racism stalks America The Jena Times: Jena Six trial re-scheduled