DFL: Just Say No!

Local Radio program shames Star Tribune, WCCO and KMSP (FOX 9) in police beating

Listen and learn Mr. Brandt!

Veteran Star Tribune reporter Steven Brandt told a list-serve IBNN NEWS and it's account of a November 20th brutal beating of Mario Booker by Minneapolis Police, which put Booker in a coma was not creditable or made-up.

Today, on BlogTalkRadio's Black Politics in Minneapolis - ON POINT radio program, Allen and his co-host Ronald A. Edwards had an exclusive interview with the attorney for Mr. Booker - Mike Padden.

All accounts by Allen to WCCO-TV, Fox 9 News and the Star Tribune were undeniably correct. 

Listen to the program here.

Nuff said!

Elected officials Samuels, Higgins, Champion must resign current posts now

Minneapolis, MN (IBNN NEWS/Stupid Politics/February 27, 2012)…Senator Linda Higgins might “want” to run for the county commissioners seat being vacated by Mark Stenglein (Hennepin County Commissioner, District 2), there are other more qualified candidates that will do a better job if elected. Also announced via Facebook, Minneapolis Ward 5 City Councilman and house-Negro (by his own admission) Don Samuels wants a shot at the soon to be vacant County Commissioner seat in District 2.  State Representative Bobby Joe Champion wants a shot a Senator Higgins seat. One things for certain, none of these elected officials have the guts to play fair and will hold on to their current seats like a baby with a security blanket.

MCTC’s Student Life: Being Colorblind won’t help the majority

MCTC’s Student Life: Being Colorblind won’t help the majority

Story originally published in City College News (Book as no association with story).

Better Off Dead Murder Death Kill in Minneapolis 01/07 by ON POINT | Blog Talk Radio

Better Off Dead Murder Death Kill in Minneapolis 01/07 by ON POINT | Blog Talk Radio

KFAI-FM Radio without Boundaries The WAVE Project Presents “Black Men in America: The Untold Stories ”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 5, 2011

IBNN’s editor-in-chief Don Allen to host hour-long program as part of

KFAI-FM’s WAVE Project - with special guests.

  

Contact: Don Allen, IBNN NEWS

Phone: (612) 986-0010

Email: ibnnnews@gmail.com

Minneapolis, MN (IBNN NEWS)…On Sunday, December 11, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. a long awaited conversation titled, “Black Men In America” will take place on the Twin Cities #1 FM radio station for community news and cultural awareness programming.

KFAI - Radio without Boundaries (90.3 FM Minneapolis - 106.7 FM St. Paul) and www.kfai.org (online), presents another installment of its critically acclaimed and prestigious WAVE Project.

Controversial and outspoken editor-in-chief of the Independent Business News Network (www.ibnnnews.com), Don Allen, will host this hour-long program.

Allen, a political activist, publisher, investigative reporter, father and civil rights activist says, “It’s time we take a real look at what is happening to Black Men in the United States – more importantly right here in my home state of Minnesota. How many more leadership groups do we need to create when none of them have addressed issues of poverty, unemployment, police brutality, education and fleecing their own back yards? I’ve assembled a cast of legends in their own time to start a conversation about real issues and the opportunities to present solid solutions.” Allen says, “This program will be a fast paced, accountability focus in simple clarity using common sense.”

IBNN’s editor-in-chief has invited local scholars and community development organizations that actively deal with the day-to-day challenges of the Black male.

Joining Allen for this in-depth discussion will be:

Dr. Jesse Mason, Jr.: In 2010 the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership (MMEP) named Jesse L. Mason, Jr., PhD an MMEP Policy Fellow. (Currently, Dr. Mason is the chair of the MMEP's African American Male Education Advisory). Dr. Mason is a member of the psychology faculty at MCTC and an adjunct faculty member at St. Catherine University. Dr. Mason has assisted in the data collection, policy analysis, research and writing of the “State of African American Males in Education in Minnesota” policy brief. Dr. Mason is also the lead advisor for the Student African American Brotherhood in at MCTC – an organization dedicated to making sure Black men and women achieve excellence in college.

Dr. Nekima Levy-Pounds, Esq: Nekima Levy-Pounds is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas and the director of the Community Justice Project (CJP), an award-winning civil rights legal clinic. Levy-Pounds serves as a consultant to local civil rights organizations, government entities, schools, and community groups on issues such as racial disparities in the criminal justice system, the school to prison pipeline, gang databases, and police misconduct. Additionally, Levy-Pounds is the Interim Board Chair of Brotherhood, Inc., a local non-profit designed to uplift and employ African American males, ages 16-24, who have had contact with the criminal justice system or gangs.

Dr. Enid Logan: Dr. Logan is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota.  She studies Contemporary U.S. Race Relations; Sociology of Afro-Latin Populations; Family, Marriage and Gender; Race and Media; Race and Law; and Historical and Comparative Methods.  Logan is also the author of the recently released book, “At This Defining Moment”: Barack Obama's Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race (NYU Press, 2011). She joins us to discuss the politics of race and gender in the Black community.

Sarah Catherine Walker - Sarah is the Chief Operating Officer at 180 Degrees, Inc. Sarah holds a BA in Political Science and African American Studies from Carleton College. Walker is also a doctoral student in the department of political science at the University of Minnesota.  Walker brings extensive research experience to issues of politics, inequality, criminal justice reform and the role of philanthropic organizations in setting interest group agendas. Her current research hypothesizes that contrary to dominant views expressing the centrality of successful media campaigns to political agenda setting, unpopular or disenfranchised groups may benefit from an absence of media attention. This hypothesis has both practical and theoretical implications and challenges the basic tenants of pluralism in American politics.

To listen to this power-packed hour of programing on in the Twin Cities area and surrounding suburbs, tune in at 10:00 a.m. (CST) to 90.3 FM in Minneapolis or 106.7 FM in St. Paul.

To listen anywhere in the world via the Internet, go to www.kfai.org and click on the “Listen Now” or “WAVE Project” link.

The broadcast of Black Men In America on KFAI-FM, Radio without Boundaries is brought to you by the WAVE Project. Views and opinions are not necessary the views of KFAI, its staff, management or board of directors.

IBNN NEWS would like to say thanks in advance to you everyone who listened today’s Black Men in America: The Untold Stories. If you miss it, please visit www.KFAI.org/waveproject (Click "listen now").

For more information, contact IBNN NEWS at ibnnnews@gmail.com. 

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The FCC’s plan to bring the Internet to the poor

Learn? Use? Access?

With the silence of Minnesota's Broadband Technology Opportunity Program and the recent events that have missed the mark in assist the Twin Cities poor in obtaining marketable skills in the areas of data entry and learning how to navigate the Internet, the FCC comes to the rescue. Is this a good thing?

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | November 10, 2011, Guest Contributor

Summary: The FCC’s “Connect to Compete” plans on bringing the Internet to the U.S.’s poor.

I know about poor. I grew up in the backwoods of West Virginia. I was lucky. I had several gifts and made the most of my chances. Thus, I was able to move from a dirt road to Manhattan skyscrapers in a few years. Most poor people don’t get that kind of shot. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided to help today’s poverty-stricken youth get their chance to move up by unveiling a plan to bring broadband Internet connections to eligible low-income families, Connect to Compete.

Working in partnership with National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) ISPs the FCC has arranged for poor families to get broadband Internet connections, without an installation/activation fee and no modem rental fees (with an option to purchase a $10 modem) for $9.95 a month. Eligibility for Connect to Compete will be limited to households that have a child enrolled in the national school lunch program and that are not current or recent broadband subscribers.

According to the NCTA, “Broadband is an increasingly integral part of getting a quality education, yet too few of the most needy kids have the service at home. Research shows the barriers to broadband adoption involve a complex mix of digital literacy, perceived relevance of online content, and access to low-cost computers and Internet service. Compete to Compete is the largest private sector initiative ever to address one key prong of the adoption problem: getting broadband Internet into the homes of students where the adoption problem is most acute. [It] can give millions more students the tools to do homework at home and to develop the skills they will need to find a job in the 21st Century economy.”

In a statement FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski expanded on this theme, “There is a growing divide between the digital-haves and have-nots. No Less than one-third of the poorest Americans have adopted broadband, while 90%+ of the richest have adopted it. Low-income Americans, rural Americans, seniors, and minorities disproportionately find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide and excluded from the $8 trillion dollar global Internet economy.”

You’ll get no argument from me on that point. Tomorrow’s good jobs are technology jobs. Basic technology literacy is as important as reading, writing and arithmetic was to earlier generations. When I say “technology literacy,” I’m not talking about being able to program in C. I’m talking about simply know how to use a Web browser and how to send an e-mail.

As Genachowski points out, 80%+ of Fortune 500 companies require online job applications, including major employers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and ExxonMobil. Increasingly, if you’re not on the net you can’t effectively apply to go to college or get a job.

How much of a difference does Internet access make? A lot. Genachowski cited a Federal Reserve study that “found that students with a PC and broadband at home have six to eight percentage point higher graduation rates than similar student who don’t have home access to the Internet.”

I expect that the gap between those with access to the Internet and technology and those without will only increase. For example, libraries are beginning to close their doors to patrons without e-readers. Oh, it’s early days still, but you can see the trend against physical books and the buildings that hold them starting from here. You may be OK with that… if you have a e-reader and an Internet connection.
In short, we, the people of America, need Internet access for all and Connect to Compete is a step in that direction.

President Obama to Dr. Childs: We need to get Information to the Community

ON POINT! Saturday's a 4 p.m.

Join us Saturday for an amazing program!

by IBNN NEWS – BlogTalkRadio’s ON POINT!

North Minneapolis businessman Dr. Timothy Childs has just returned from a trip to Washington, DC that included a dinner for him and his wife with President Obama. (Read more here)

Dr. Childs told IBNN NEWS in an exclusive interview that President Obama and his staff want to make sure that the broader community is receiving valuable information about programs in education, economic development ad health care.

Dr. Childs told IBNN NEWS, “This was an eye-opening experience. The president is truly concerned about things like the achievement gap. He has given me a mission to address disparities and report back on our progress.”

Dr. Childs is a  north Minneapolis businessman who operates a technology firm and a education foundation that assists inner city kids reach their goals and potential. The TCL Education Foundations president Ms. Yolanda Friday is looking forward to the challenges ahead.

Dr. Childs will be joining co-hosts Ronald A. Edwards and Don Allen on Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 4 p.m. to talk about his trip to Washington, DC and what means to the community in the Twin Cities.

"Tune in Saturday at 4 p.m. - it's no laughing matter..."

Also on Saturday’s show, we will look at the recent hiring trend that have excluded Black youth in favor of adults from the Hispanic-Latino community.

Join co-host Ronald A. Edwards and Don Allen on Saturday,  as we bust down the color barrier and explained what happened in White America that turned a simple after school job into a competitive position for Hispanic-Latino adult workers.

First of all, IBNN NEWS and it’s affiliates admire, respect and support Minnesota’s Hispanic-Latino population.

Saturday ON POINT! we will discuss what happen to areas like Lake Street, Broadway Avenue, University Avenue (St. Paul) as it relations to the influx of Hispanic-Latino workers and why in 2011 it’s hard to find a Black youth with a full time summer job at a fast food restaurant.

The trick of White supremacy in the 21st century is to create a Black-Brown conflict and get us to blame each other.

We will also discuss the Minneapolis Public Schools; the Northwest Area Foundation; The City, Inc and other local current events.

To tune in on Saturday at 4 p.m. (CST), click here or go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onpointmn/2011/04/23/president-obama-to-dr-childs-informaton-to-the-community

This is a LIVE 90-minute call-in program. We welcome callers to join the conversation at 877-572-4288.

Exclusive interview with Professor Nekima Levy-Pounds today on BlogTalkRadio’s ON POINT!

Professor Levy-Pounds and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton

University of St. Thomas professor Nekima Levy-Pounds mixes it up with Ron and Don today on BlogTalkRadio’s ON POINT!

Co-hosts Ronald A. Edwards and Don Allen are pleased to welcome professor Nekima Levy-Pounds on-air LIVE today ON POINT!

Professor Levy-Pounds spoke at this week’s economic summit in north Minneapolis with Governor Mark Dayton looking on as she described the two Minnesota's: "One White, and one Black."

Professor Nekima Levy-Pounds is the director of the Community Justice Project (CJP), an award-winning civil rights legal clinic. The CJP is a part of the Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services. Levy-Pounds teaches and supervises law students as they use the law as a tool to advance the cause of social justice in poor communities of color through problem-solving, legal research and writing, community engagement and legislative advocacy. Levy-Pounds’ goal in founding the CJP was to take a more holistic approach to addressing complex issues affecting the poor and working poor.
Tune in today at 4 p.m. for the best news and information coverage in the Twin Cities diverse community.

To listen, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ibnnnews/2011/04/02/governor-mark-daytons-economic-summit-in-north-minneapolis--lets-talk-about-it-saturday-on-point-1.

This is a live 90-minute call-in radio program. If you would like to comment or ask a question, please dial our toll-free number at 877-572-4288.

Two Americas, One White, One Black

Originally posted By Jon Garrido, Hispanic News on September 4, 2005 -  and still applies today in 2011.
 
The view of New Orleans this past week was hundreds of thousands of poor Blacks in water full of squalor and human waste.

It seem as the Protestant rapture had come and gone leaving behind thousands of poor Blacks on rooftops waiting to be rescued from a non caring President and the rest of his non responsive back slapping department heads and agencies.

Rapture powered SUVs carried off Whites leaving New Orleans to poor Blacks to cope with Katrina and her aftermath.

What Katrina did was to uncover the filth and rot found around the block of one of the great vacation destinations of the world.

One only has to leave the beaten tourist path by walking around the block of Cancun to discover the blight of an undeveloped world.

Many of us have known about the plight of undeveloped countries but in the United States? Who would have believed the decay of the third world could be found in the richest country in the world.
The great vacation destination of Bourbon Street has for generations masked a condition found in third world countries where poor serve the rich that live and vacation in luxurious destinations.

This week, the undercarriage of one of America's finest cities was laid bare as if a knife had slashed an abdomen with entrails gushing forth onto the ground.

One can only surmise on the flight to New Orleans aboard Air Force One, the President was more concerned about the welfare of his small lap dog.

The President scrambled down the stairs of Air Force One with his small dog protected in his arm to be briefed; a briefing that could have taken place in Washington or on board Air Force One but instead was a photo op for the President.

If this had been a caring President, he would have flown into New Orleans the day after Katrina came and left. He would have plowed through waist high water to see the disaster left behind by Katrina and seen first hand the dire need of hundreds of thousands of poor Blacks who could not evacuate New Orleans for lack of resources to find themselves homeless, waterless, foodless, lacking medical services and not one portable toilet for people to defecate.

Countless dead bodies lay everywhere on sidewalks covered by a blanket or sheet waiting days for someone to provide transportation to a more appropriate place.

Poor Blacks struggled to survive and provide for family became frustrated and converted these feelings to vent their anger of being members of the other America.

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our President, holding his small Black dog, hailed him in Mobile, Ala.: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, said in a statement he was struck by Mr. Bush's "cavalier attitude toward the plight of poor people across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama" and added that "now is not the time in the face of pain, anguish and death to be weak and uncertain."

Terry Ebbert, the head of homeland security in New Orleans, bitterly complained on Thursday the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not offering enough help.

"This is a national emergency," Mr. Ebbert told The Associated Press. "This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

Other Democrats cast Mr. Bush's first survey of the damage, from his window on Air Force One two days after the hurricane hit, as an imperial act removed from the suffering of the people below.
"It was not enough for the President to bank his plane and look at the window and say, 'Oh, what a devastating site,'" Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, said in a statement on Thursday. "Instead of looking out the window of an airplane, he should have been on the ground giving hope to the people devastated by this hurricane."

This week, White America visibly turned its back on Black America.

It was not the first time.

For countless generations, America has turned its back on poor Black Americans. The sad fact is Americans live in two separate worlds. One world has every creature comfort and caters to its social group members. The other world is where poor Blacks live as evidenced by 50% of the New Orleans children who live in poverty. Children in poverty in Mississippi is almost as deplorable. Black Americans are in dire need of the basic requirements of food, shelter, medical care, and education that are the foundation of living in human dignity.

But no one among the Washington power brokers care for poor Black Americans. Not the President nor the white dominated congress. Nor congressional representatives of Louisiana and Mississippi who carried off pork for projects in affluent areas of Louisiana and Mississippi.

As early as 2004, New Orleans anticipated a breach of the levee could occur with a category 3 hurricane. Last year, the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs for New Orleans. The White House carved it down to about $40 million.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, stated, "It appears that the money has been moved in the President's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Two months ago the Bush administration approved a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island championed by Ted Stevens, the senior senator from Alaska and ranking Republican member of the powerful appropriations committee.

The 6,000 pet projects include insane non necessary projects whose only purpose is to serve the powerful congressional leaders as they provide "pork" barbeques to populations of voters back home.

The failure to appropriate $65 million to address levee maintenance in New Orleans will now have a $25 billion price tag. Rather than distribute federal funds where need is greatest, money buys votes: White votes.

Not only was the levee restoration money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

The crisis in New Orleans will have a ripple effect. The inevitable battery of official investigations into what went wrong could further erode support for the war in Iraq if it turned out that the deployment of National Guard units to Iraq had contributed to the slow response.

Bush keeps stating the US military will not leave Iraq until the Iraqis are trained to defend themselves.

The question I have: Who trained the insurgents? It appears the U.S. military trained Iraqi units are no match for the insurgents. The insurgents continue to kill American soldiers in Iraq. Our military fights heroically but our military will fight wherever and whomever the President of the United States tells them to.

The villain in this unjust war is President Bush. There never was a need to fight this war. For a moment, visualize no Iraq war but only a war on terrorism directed toward the capture of  Osama bin Laden and the end of Al-Qaeda.

The death and wounding of American soldiers in Iraq is morally wrong and inhumane. Not nearly the equal cost of a human life but never the less, another casualty of the war in Iraq is the lack of funding for schools, medical services, job training, social services and infrastructure not only lacking in New Orleans but across the length of America.

Beyond that, some Republicans said the perception among some Blacks that the White House had been slow to respond because so many victims were poor and African-American undercut what had been one of the primary initiatives of the new Republican chairman, Ken Mehlman: making an explicit appeal for support among Black voters, a constituency that has traditionally been overwhelmingly Democratic.
 
"Given the racial component of this, and given the current political environment, there certainly seems to be a high level of risk to this story," said a Republican Party official, who, citing the concern among party officials about the criticism, would only discuss the question on the condition of not being identified.

But Mr. Bush, reflecting concern within the White House about the President's standing among Blacks, notably said in his radio address "we have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters all along the Gulf Coast, and we will not rest until we get this right and the job is done."

Someone should inform the President, brothers and sisters include poor Black Americans.

President Bush has boycotted the NAACP annual meeting every year he has been President of the United States.

You can bet the bank, the President will attend the 2006 Annual Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on July 15, 2006 at the Washington, D.C. Washington Convention Center.

Hopefully, the NAACP membership will see the Trojan Horse's true mission and will turn its back on White America.

Lastly, White America's membership is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.
Poor Blacks need to bond with other poor people in need. A coalition of neglected people need to bond together to elect true advocates for poor people.

I advocate a new party arise from the disaster of New Orleans. Black Americans should join with American Hispanics to forge a new political party: One America.

Third parties in the United States have not fared with success. Maybe the time has come to turn this country around to forge: One America.


Jon Garrido
Hispanic News
www.Hispanic.cc
480 860 8600
JG@Hispanic.cc

The Right Negros; Elitist Politicians; MPS New Headquarters, Mortenson Construction and Steel from China – Saturday’s radio program ON POINT!

Join long-time civil rights activist, blogger, and columnist for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder Ronald A. Edwards and co-host Donald W.R. Allen, II – Editor in Chief of the Independent Business News Network and USA Radical Black for a special 90-minute program to  address some political issues in the Twin Cities that might lead to a recall of two Democratic-Minneapolis State Representatives.
BlogTalkRadio’s ON POINT is a nationally syndicated radio program broadcast across the world via the Internet. Listen from the comfort of your home computer, laptop or SmartPhone® by going to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ibnnnews/2011/03/12/the-right-negros-elitist-politicians-mps-new-headquarters-mortenson-construction-and-steel-from-c

On Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 4 p.m.,(CST), the Ron and Don show will discuss the recent events that have a planning committee “selecting” who gets to address Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton at a community meeting. The snobbish, elitist politicians who are organizing this “community meeting” risk a recall from constituents in 58B and 61B, some of the poorest people in the United States.

State Representatives Bobby Joe Champion (58B) and Jeff Hayden (61B) have decided that community members are not good enough to speak with Mr. Dayton in an open community forum. The duo has developed a list of the ‘Right Negros’ to speak at the forum. The line between public servants and event planners has been mucked up.

ON POINT will also cover Thursday’s (3/10) Minneapolis Public Schools Oversight Committee for the new district headquarters. The community of Minneapolis was invited to give input about participation; outreach; diversity; and equity.  The only problem, the emails about the meeting were only sent out to the press. Parents, Educators, and administrators had no idea this meeting was being held. Only three private citizens showed up.

ON POINT will also have breaking news on global current events. ON POINT is a live call-in show, we invite listeners to call in and participate by dialing our toll-free number at (877) 572-4288.
Tune in Saturday at 4 p.m. (CST) to ON POINT!