Monday, December 24, 2007

Jay-Z to step down as President of Def Jam


The Jigga's up...and out the door.

Jay-Z will be having lots more time to spend with Beyoncé this New Year's after it was announced Monday that he would be stepping down as president of Def Jam effective Jan. 1.

He took over the reins at the famed hip-hop factory in 2005 shortly after he announced his brief retirement from recording.

During his two-year tenure, Jay-Z has signed the likes of Rihanna and Ne-Yo and overseen blockbuster releases by himself and Kanye West.

Universal Music, the parent of Def Jam, says the rapper will continue to record for the label.

Last month, the 38-year-old rap kingpin, whose real name is Shawn Carter, saw his latest album, American Gangster, open on top of the pop charts. That gave him 10 number one albums in 10 years and tied him with Elvis Presley for the most chart toppers by a solo artist. Hova and Presley trail only the Beatles, who have 19 number one albums.

He is also up for five Grammy Awards, while he helped steer Def Jam to a total of 26 nods.

In August, Jay-Z was tapped as the top Hip-Hop Cash King by Forbes magazine, pocketing $34 million the previous year.

Before taking over at Def Jam, Jay-Z cofounded Roc-A-Fella Records and several spinoff companies, including the Rocawear fashion label, which he has since sold for $204 million.

Link

Rapper Yung Joc Arrested on gun charges

Rapper Yung Joc has been charged with carrying a concealed weapon, after cops say they found a loaded semi-automatic gun in his carry-on bag at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. It's goin' down!

Joc, whose real name is Jasiel Robinson, was arrested around 6:15 AM Sunday morning, before boarding a Delta flight. He was attempting to go through a regular security checkpoint when police say they found the handgun and ammunition. Cops say the rapper told them he didn't know the weapon was there. Oops!

He was arrested without incident, is now free on $50,000 bail and will be arraigned Wednesday.

His attorney told the AP, "Yung Joc maintains his innocence. He would appreciate privacy as he addresses these allegations."

Link

Jewish Defense League calls on Obama to repudiate Will Smith's comments on Hitler

On the day before Christmas, a leading Jewish group is kvetching loudly about Will Smith's recent suggestion that Adolf Hitler wasn't all bad, calling it "ignorant, detestable, and offensive." Oy.

And it doesn't end there ...

The Jewish Defense League is calling on Barack Obama to repudiate Smith's comments, and wants theaters to pull Smith's new flick "I Am Legend" from their screens. Smith told a Scottish paper that Hitler "didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' ... I think he woke up the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'" What kind of meshuggeneh talk is that?!

Smith's words, say the JDL, "spit on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought (and sometimes died) to save the world from the intentions of Adolf Hitler." Smith's rep could not be reached for comment.

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WTF! What does Obama have to do what Will Smith says? So is Obama responsible for every thing a black person says for now on? The JDL has lost their damn mind.

Giuliani Snuck 2,000 Boxes of Records Out of New York's City Hall

If you thought Darth Cheney was secretive...you'll love Rudy

Let's see how his campaign responds to this. The AP reports that, while NY government only allows a former mayor to keep a few token gifts when they clean out their desks, Rudy Giuliani would have needed several U-Hauls to remove all the paperwork he whisked out of City Hall, Gracie Mansion and other offices. That doesn't square with his claim that he believes in "open government." Or maybe it depends on the meaning of the word "open."

This is a scathing article and a must-read. It documents a man so controlling and paranoid that requests for benign public data having nothing to do with security (such as number of working water fountains in the city's parks), required a formal request to the mayor's office.

And he repeatedly battled other city agencies over access to information that ended up in court, with the city losing almost every case.


Link

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What are you trying to hide Mr. Giuliani?

Russia to equip Iran defense system

Russian experts are in Tehran to install the Tor M1 Air Defense System and train Iranian forces on operating and maintaining the equipment.

Head of the Russian Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, Mikhail Dmitriev said the Defense System is a surface-to-air short range missile.

Under a US $700 million Iran-Russia contract, Moscow has provided Tehran with the Tor M1 Air Defense System and now sent technicians to supervise the training process, said the Russian official.

Both sides reached an agreement on the issue following the fourth Iran-Russia Joint Defense Cooperation Commission on Dec. 19, 2007.

Source

Dead Prez-Propaganda




Hiphop with meaning, Check out Dead Prez, One of my favorite musical acts

Dead Prez - We Need A Revolution

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Tent city in suburbs is cost of home crisis

Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

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As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it's just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say.

"They don't hit the streets immediately," said activist Jane Mercer. Most families can find transitional housing in a motel or with friends before turning to charity or the streets. "They only hit tent city when they really bottom out."

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CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.

Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.

It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: “If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?”

The tapes recorded the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two suspected Al-Qaeda leaders, over hundreds of hours while they were held in secret “ghost” prisons. According to testimony from a former CIA officer, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning, and “broke” after 35 seconds. He is believed to have been interrogated in Thailand. The tapes were destroyed in 2005. Both men are now held in Guantanamo Bay....

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After all the shit that this White House has been allowed to get away with could this be the final straw? Could this be what finally brings the criminal Bush Admin. down? Stay tuned this could get interesting.

The real American gangster by Louis Farrakhan

Excerpt


How many of you have seen the movie American Gangster? How many of you have seen the BET program “American Gangster”? Do you think this is an accident? This is no accident, Brother. Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET? They took it away from Bob Johnson and gave him an offer that he couldn’t refuse. They have Essence; they have our hair product people; they have Motown. Everything that we built, they have. The mind of Satan now is running the record industry, movie industry and television.

And they make us look like we’re the murders; we look like we’re the gangsters, but we’re punk stuff. If you can come out of seeing that movie, saying, “Damn, Frank Lucas was bad,” then this inspires you to try to be like him. Let me show you what Frank Lucas really was: If the lure of this is true, he brought in heroine in the 1960s—I want young people to pay attention!

In the 1960s, your grandparents were on picket lines. Your grandparents were marching against White Supremacy and Jim Crow. They were being beaten down with fire hoses and dogs and they were put in prison just so you could go to a toilet! We paid a hell of a price to get something so damn cheap as a voting right that the enemy finds a way to take from you.

The moment the riots began and Black folks rose up, because all Black people weren’t following Dr. King—though the enemy would like to make you think that everybody had that same kind of dream—there were Black people who didn’t want anything to do with going to school with White people. There were Black people that didn’t want anything to do with integrating with them. There were Black people that would never turn the other cheek and be non-violent. There were the Deacons for Defense!

There was the Black Panther Party; there were Black men willing to take up arms against this enemy, and the moment that kind of spirit was in the people, a purer form of heroine was introduced in the Black community.

Therefore, Frank Lucas was a pawn of the powers that wanted to drug those who weren’t drugged by religion; drugged by the enemy’s education. They were drugged with a purer form of heroine, so in the movie, you see them shooting up and dying. Frank Lucas was killing his people for money.

In the movie, they said he had planes flying in with a purer form of heroine, and that he even punked the Mafia. You can believe that bull if you want to.

What are they telling you? Do you think you can out-criminalize the real criminals? Is that why your behind is filling up all the jails in America and they’re working your raggedy behind like a slaves, like they did your great grandfathers? Is that why you think you can outdo the White man in criminal behavior? He is the number one criminal. He just doesn’t rob you—he robs countries. He doesn’t just kill you—he kills whole populations. You’re a cheap killer and a cheap thief compared to him.

That movie was designed to inspire you to a gangster life. The whole series on BET, is designed to inspire young, Black men to more criminal conduct as though there are no White gangsters. But this is a focus on Black gangsters and they are now calling you “The American Gangster.” How did you get to be an American gangster when you are not an American at all? If you doubt what I am saying, go back and get the early dictionaries and see what the term “American” means—they name the European countries that are the real Americans, and no American could be an aboriginal. This is why you don’t have real citizenship now; they tell you that you are a citizen, but they treat you like a slave. Either you are or you are not a citizen.

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Top 25 Censored news stories of 2007

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media

#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger

#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo

#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy

# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq

#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act

#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall

#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians

#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed

#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines

#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup

#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US

#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner

#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court

#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda

#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story

#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever

#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem

#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers

#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed

#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe

#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year

#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

Source

Democrats cave again



The Democrats' capitulation Wednesday on the total domestic spending level is the latest instance of Bush prevailing on a major policy showdown. Bush and his Senate Republican allies have repeatedly beat back efforts by Democrats to place restrictions on funding for the war in Iraq as well as Democratic attempts to expand funding of children's health insurance by $35 billion.

Now Huckabee is going down

One almost pities them. Every time Republicans start narrowing their choice of presidential candidates, they get the head handed to them by the vulturous press or some antagonistic, oppo-research operation. So they move on to the next Great White Savior, only to witness another beheading.

And it's starting to look like when all is said and done, they'll be left, through a savage attrition process and by sheer default, with the one candidate they largely like the least: John McCain.

The latest victim of easily scooped-up scrutiny is the Most Right Reverend Michael Dale Huckabee, the one-time Southern governor who now appears to have been but another Huey Long, without the demagogic charm.

And that's no exaggeration. Reading this morning's New York Times piece on Huckabee's executive tenure is like strolling through the Louisiana statehouse, circa 1930s. "Against the political advice of his party and his aides," reports the Times, "[Huckabee] pardoned or commuted the sentences of hundreds of convicts, including murderers, sometimes over the heated objections of prosecutors and victims’ families" ... just like Huey ... "He was cited five times by the state ethics commission for financial improprieties" ... just like Huey ... and he "unapologetically accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of clothes and other gifts while he was governor" ... just like Huey.

In 1999 alone, for instance, Rev. Mike "reported getting $112,366 in gifts," damn near twice the amount of his salary. But my favorite? He also used "a state fund meant to operate the governor’s mansion for personal family expenses like pantyhose and meals at Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken." The story does not specify for whom the pantyhose were, but at least we now know how the governor came to be the bloated hunk of trans fat he once was.

Also like Huey, he actually did some good for his state, albeit through a brutal arrogance that vastly annoyed his own political camp. For example he pushed through "a major expansion of health insurance for children of the working poor whose families did not qualify for Medicaid," which left ultraconservative neanderthals like Peggy Jeffries, "then a Republican state senator and now executive director of the Arkansas affiliate of the Eagle Forum," wouldn't you know, sputtering "None of us understood what he was trying to do." About that, Peg, I have no doubt....

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Saturday, December 22, 2007

Beanie Sigel, Bill Cosby March For Peace

By Chris Richburg

Rap star Beanie Sigel generated talk of a different kind during Philadelphia’s Peace Week 2007, when he walked hand-in-hand with actor/comedian Bill Cosby, during an anti-crime march.

The pair, who marched alongside each other on Thursday (December 20), spoke earlier that day to 30 at risk youths at William Penn High School in Philadelphia.

The event allowed Sigel the opportunity to help direct youth towards positive options that he was not able to fully utilize.

"I come from these things, the streets," said Sigel. "I'm at a time in my life where I'm trying to make the transition from something negative to something positive."

Sigel, Cosby and men’s outreach group Men United for a Better Philadelphia are working to help keep Philadelphia’s murder rate below 400.

The rapper will continue to raise awareness by embarking on an ongoing tour of local high schools, juvenile facilities and jails.

Additionally, Sigel will encourage youths to exercise their minds and stop the violence through local public service announcements.

The effort comes on the heels of the recent release of the rapper’s new album The Solution.

The project, which finds Sigel addressing the issues of crime, teen pregnancy and personal struggles, is in stores now.

Source

Mit Romney caught lying again

Mitt Romney backtracked yesterday from claims that he saw his father march with Martin Luther King in the 1960s, saying he used "saw" as “a figure of speech." The Boston Globe dissects the partial mea culpa, noting that the candidate couldn't have "seen" it even figuratively because Romney père never walked an inch with the civil-rights leader. Worse, Mitt “went a step further” in 1978, the piece notes, declaring, “My father and I marched with” King. • The New York Times' Michael Luo senses a pattern, alleging that Romney is “prone to exaggeration, taking what is essentially a kernel of truth and stretching it to bolster his case.” The evidence: Romney claimed a nonexistent 2002 NRA endorsement, professed to being a lifelong hunter when he’d only hunted twice, and said he “got tough on” methamphetamines when his bill in fact died in legislature.

Source