Oracle News

Some Black Churches Rally Around Obama’s Job Plan, Petition Congress For More Black Jobs

theoraclemag — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:05:24 +0000

Disgruntled clergy and healthcare leaders have launched a nationwide petition campaign in churches calling for the Congress and the private business sector to support President Obama’s embattled jobs program.At the same time, they are also urging the creation of thousands of new employment opportunities for minorities in the pharmaceutical, insurance and other private industries.

Clergy and Providers for Racial Healthcare Equality (CPRHE) announced the initiatives in mid-September at its “Save the Presidency of Barack Obama” gathering and town hall meeting in Harlem.

The campaign was part of the kickoff of a national petition drive aimed at reducing the excessive 16 percent unemployment rate among blacks. The national average unemployment rate hovers above nine percent.

At the meeting, 125 persons from the New York area signed petitions to be submitted to the Congress. CPRHE said it hopes to present thousands of other petitions, mostly from churches, within the next two months to the Congress in order to gain support for the President’s jobs bill.

“We are asking members of the Congress, the pharmaceutical, the insurance and the healthcare industry at large to commit themselves to reduce the unemployment rate among African Americans and other people of color,” declared Rev. Dr. Clyde Anderson, executive director of CPRHE, a healthcare and religious civil rights organization.

“We are also asking church leaders and their congregations around the country to support the reelection of President Obama,” he said.

“If there is to be any progress with respect jobs creation and social justice for minorities, we must reelect the President.

“We believe that arch-conservative Republicans and tea partiers are determined to oust the President as well as the Democratically-controlled Senate,” he explained.

Anderson added: “It does not matter to them whether he is a great or effective president or not. They simply want him out of office so that they can continue to do their dastardly deeds.”

The four-point petition, which will be submitted to the Congress in late fall, calls on the Congress and the private sector to take the following actions:

• Pass Obama’s “American Jobs Act of 2011″ in order to reduce the high unemployment rate among blacks, Latinos, Native peoples and other minorities.

• Pressure private industry–namely the pharmaceutical and insurance companies–to establish manufacturing and other plants in American minority areas rather than overseas to provide new jobs, as well as halt the future layoffs of them.

• Demand that Fortune 500 companies create a major new program to award contracts to minority-owned businesses, which will in turn be required to dramatically increase the percentage of minorities to their work force

• Mandate that all branches of the government cease doing business with private companies found guilty of engaging in discriminatory practices against minorities. These businesses include hospitals, clinics and others receiving moneys from Medicare, Medicaid and other governmental programs.

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SOURCE: The Spiritual Herald

Jamal Jordan

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Wheelchair Bound Christian Leader, Joni Eareckson Tada, Says What’s Up, Pat Robertson?

theoraclemag — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:47:28 +0000

Image by Rachel Ford James via Flickr

On Thursday, Joni Eareckson Tada, founder and chief executive officer of Joni and Friends International Disability Center, a Christian-based organization based in Agoura Hills, Calif., issued a statement condemning Robertson’s remarks.

Tada was “dismayed,” she said, that the host of CBN’s most popular program suggested “Alzheimer’s disease is a kind of death” that makes it morally acceptable to dispose of an afflicted husband or wife. “When a Christian leader views marriage on a sliding scale, what does this say to the millions of couples who must deal daily with catastrophic injuries and illnesses?” Tada asked.

Robertson’s latest controversial remark came in response to a viewer who related that a friend whose wife has Alzheimer’s was “bitter at God” and seeing another woman. “The 700 Club” host told the viewer that his friend “should divorce and start over,” while arranging adequately for his deposed wife.

“I certainly wouldn’t put a guilt trip on you if you decided that you had to have companionship,” Robertson said. “You’re lonely.”

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SOURCE: The Christian Post

Joseph Perkins

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theoraclemag — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:35:50 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

“If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. “There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.”

CBC members have expressed concern in recent months as the unemployment rate has continued to rise amongst African-Americans, pushing for Obama to do more to address the needs of vulnerable communities.

“We’re supportive of the president, but we getting tired, y’all,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in August. “We want to give [Obama] every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is.”

Rather than targeting Obama’s leadership, many CBC members aimed their fire at the Tea Party movement over the summer’s congressional recess. Waters said in a public meeting in her district that the Tea Party “can go straight to hell.” Another member, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), called the Tea Party “the real enemy” seeking to hold Congress “hostage.”

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SOURCE: The Hill

Alicia M. Cohn

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Video: Waters to Black Obama Supporters: ‘Unleash Us’ to Criticize Pres

theoraclemag — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 05:23:09 +0000

Video: Waters to Black Obama Supporters: ‘Unleash Us’ to Criticize Pres

by EURPublisher01

*Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California told a Detroit crowd this week that members of her Congressional Black Caucus are hesitant to criticize President Barack Obama because they feel they may lose support from the black community.

“We do not put pressure on the president because y’all love the president,” Waters told the boisterous crowd. “You are very proud to have a black man as president for the very first time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you are going after us.”

Voices in the crowd can be heard imploring Waters to press Obama on issues like unemployment.

“When you unleash us … and tell us it is all right to have this conversation, we are ready to have this conversation,” Waters said, adding: “The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president, too. We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired. We’re getting tired. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community.”

Obama was on three-day bus tour earlier this week. He was in areas of Minnesota and Iowa on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, he hosted a pair of town hall forums in his home state of Illinois.

The unemployment rate in July was 9.1%, with about 14 million Americans out of work. But the unemployment rate for blacks is 15.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed_edition&videoId=bestoftv/2011/08/18/exp.am.waters.jobs.obama.cnn

Winning Again: Serena Williams Captures 1st Title in Comeback

theoraclemag — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:03:03 +0000

Serena Williams rreturns a shot to Sabine Lisicki of Germany during the Bank of the West Classic at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium on July 30, 2011 in Stanford, California.

Serena Williams has captured her first tournament title since returning to tennis, beating Marion Bartoli 7-5, 6-1 to win the Bank of the West Classic on Sunday.

The 13-time major champion overcame two breaks in the first set to rally for a dominating finish. She went ahead 5-0 in the second and never relented.

The victory was even sweeter because the ninth-ranked Bartoli beat the former world No. 1 in straight sets in the fourth round at Wimbledon this year. The finals appearance also was the first for Williams since winning at the All England Club in 2010 and her best showing since missing nearly a year because of blood clots in her lungs and two foot operations.

All those worries washed away this week.

Unseeded and ranked 169th, Williams mowed down the competition with relative ease, including a 6-1, 6-3 thumping of Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals. She capped it off with a vintage performance against a well-rested Bartoli, who advanced when Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova withdrew in the other semifinal because of a strained abdominal muscle.

Sporting a long-sleeve green shirt and black skirt, the conservative outfit – by the Williams sisters’ standards, anyway – matched her strategy. She was calm and cool behind Bartoli’s go-for-broke shots and second serve topping 100 mph, having a harder time with the elements.

Williams had struggled serving into the sun on a crisp and clear day at Stanford, even hitting a few serves with a shortened toss and awkward delivery. She was broken in the third game of the match and eventually went down 4-2.

Williams saved two break points and moved back to 4-3, pumping her fist in celebration with a forehand winner. Bartoli broke back and served for the match at 5-4, first requesting a trainer to deal with a blister on her right hand.

After a long rally on set point for Williams, somebody in the crowd yelled “out” while Bartoli returned a ball from the baseline. The French woman kept playing before hitting the next ball into the net to give Williams the set.

Bartoli argued unsuccessfully with the chair umpire to replay the point, and she requested a trainer between sets. She lost her serve in the second game, went down 5-0 and watched as Williams skipped around the court at Taube Tennis Center.

Such a small victory for Williams has never meant so much.

After winning Wimbledon in July 2010, she was out for nearly a year recovering from various health scares. The worst were two foot operations and blood clots in her lungs that left her depressed and “on my deathbed,” as she put it, much less wondering if she could ever play again.

Now Williams is not only back but ready to make a run on the hard-court series this summer and at U.S. Open beginning in late August.

SOURCE: The Associated Press

Antonio Gonzalez

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Herman Cain Wins Denver Straw Poll, Rick Perry Second

theoraclemag — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 01:19:59 +0000

Gov. Rick Perry placed a distant second in the Denver Straw Poll this weekend, a contest that GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain easily won after a rousing speech and a direct plea for support Sunday.

“Didn’t I tell you that the people were going to select the next nominee?” Cain said after the results were announced. “You all have really made me feel good today … We’re not done yet!”

Perry didn’t ask that his name be put into the non-binding straw poll, which serves as a test of strength among western Republicans. But organizers of the Western Conservative Summit put both declared and undeclared candidates into the mix. Cain, the former chairman and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, won with 48 percent of the conference participants, far ahead of the others.

Perry got 13 percent, polling higher than declared candidate Rick Santorum, who got 10 percent. The former Pennsylvania senator had sharply criticized the Texas governor‘s stand on gay marriage during the conference.

Perry, who drew a huge crowd at a book-signing event before he spoke on Friday, also outperformed both former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, considered the frontrunner in the Republican presidential contest so far, and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who has emerged as a strong contender in her native Iowa.

Romney tied Santorum at 10 percent, while Bachmann received 9 percent.

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SOURCE: The Texas Tribune

Jay Root

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Church Board Says Crystal Cathedral Is No Longer for Sale by UCN

theoraclemag — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 01:03:17 +0000

The Crystal Cathedral‘s new board has decided to raise $50 million in four months instead of selling the 40-acre campus.

The Crystal Cathedral, Orange County’s iconic megachurch built by Robert H. Schuller, is not for sale, Sheila Schuller Coleman, senior pastor of the cathedral and Schuller’s oldest daughter, announced during church services Sunday morning.

There are at least four known offers for the financially ailing megachurch – one from Newport Beach developer, Greenlaw Partners LLC. and another from Chapman University, both for $46 million – and $50 million offers from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and Norco-based My Father’s House Church International.

A court hearing to discuss the status of the offers is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday in bankruptcy court. The church is expected to ask the court for permission to submit a plan that will involve raising $50 million in the next 120 days.

Coleman, who is a non-voting member of the board, said during Sunday’s services that the board feels an overwhelming need to preserve the 40-acre campus and its core buildings.

“The board feels its great responsibility toward all of our vendors and other creditors, to pay them 100 percent of what is owed as soon as possible,” Coleman said, “but also a responsibility to the local members and viewers of our nationally and internationally televised ‘Hour of Power‘ to retain the ministry’s Orange County headquarters intact.”

Sunday’s announcement, which was referred to by Coleman as a “faith-based decision,” was jointly made by Coleman and Walt Kallestad, senior pastor of the Church of Joy in Glendale, Ariz., who joined the board recently.

Last week, Crystal Cathedral Ministries announced a shakeup of its international board, which included the reinstatement of Robert H. Schuller as a voting board member. Schuller was voted off the board last month by members Gwyn Myers and Rick Mysse, who are no longer on the board.

Coleman said the English, Spanish and Arabic ministries at the Crystal Cathedral will come together to “seek God’s blessing of a $50 million dollar miracle.”

That miracle, the senior pastor said, could be as simple as collecting $500 from 100,000 members and “Hour of Power” viewers worldwide.

Robert H. Schuller, who started this ministry 55 years ago on the roof of the Orange drive-in’s snack shack, released a statement Sunday expressing his appreciation for several interested buyers who contacted him personally before submitting their offers.

“I have been deeply moved by their care even though the campus is not mine to sell – it belongs to the church and the ministries.”

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SOURCE: The Orange County Register

Deepa Bharath

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No Moss? Randy Moss to Retire After 13 Seasons, 153 Touchdowns

theoraclemag — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:18:29 +0000

Pictured: Randy Moss (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Future Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss has decided to retire rather than continue playing.

“After weighing his options and contemplating offers, he’s decided to retire,” Moss’ agent, Joel Segal, told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter on Monday.

Moss, 34, played 13 seasons, catching 954 passes for 14,858 yards with 153 touchdowns.

Moss split 2010 with the New England Patriots, Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans after three full seasons in New England.

He was instrumental to the Patriots’ 2007 record-breaking season in which they won 16 straight games before losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl.

Moss, drafted 21st overall by Minnesota in 1998, spent the first seven seasons of his career with the Vikings before playing for the Oakland Raiders in 2005 and ’06.

Only two weeks ago, Segal described Moss as being in “freakish shape” after “working out, two-a-days, all spring and summer in West Virginia.”

“He is determined, motivated and quite frankly has a huge chip on his shoulder. Whatever team ends up getting Randy, they’re going to know they’re getting the old Randy Moss,” Segal told NFL.com in mid-July. “He’s not just coming in to be on the team, he’s going to be Randy Moss — a difference-maker.”

Moss finished 2010 with 28 receptions — including just six in eight games with Tennessee — along with 393 receiving yards and five touchdowns in an up-and-down season.

That production was a big drop for the receiver who ranks second only to Jerry Rice for most TD catches, 100-yard receiving games and most games with two TD catches or more.

The seven-time Pro Bowler was tied with the Steelers’ Hines Ward for eighth all-time in receptions with 954. He is just one of 10 players to have 950 or more career receptions.

SOURCE: ESPN | The Associated Press

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Senate Chaplain’s Prayers for Debt Crisis Become More Urgent

theoraclemag — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 21:46:13 +0000

As the Senate has mired itself in bickering and deadlock this week, there has been at least one voice of the panic rising in the country around Washington.

It’s been the deep, solemn voice of the Senate’s chaplain, retired Admiral Barry C. Black.

A longtime Navy chaplain and Seventh-Day Adventist minister, Black opens Senate sessions with a brief prayer. Over the last few days–as the Senate has slid closer to a national default–those prayers seem to have revealed Black as one of the most worried people in the chamber.

Back on July 20, Black was speaking only in hopeful generalities. In the prayer that began that session, he asked the Almighty to “give to our lawmakers the wisdom to know the role they should play, in keeping freedom’s holy light bright.”

But, as the days passed by, it became apparent that the Senate was not showing any more wisdom that it had previously. By last Tuesday, Black’s request indicated that his senators might need more divine help.

“Keep them,” he prayed, “from the pit of disunity and discord. And empower them to build bridges of coooperation. Give them the courage and humility to do what is right, knowing that you are the only constituent they absolutely must please.”

But lawmakers only descended further into that pit of disunity. In fact, the Senate seemed to be digging that hole deeper.

So Black’s prayers began to warn of the consequences if the Senate did not straighten up and act right.

“Lord,” he prayed on Wednesday, “as our nation faces the potentially catastrophic, inspire our lawmakers to seek your counsel which will stand forever.”

Still nothing. The two sides remained far apart, and the “potentially catastrophic” crept closer.

On Friday, Black dialed it up another notch.

“Lord, help them to comprehend the global repercussions of some poor decisions, and the irreversibility of some tragic consequences,” he prayed. “Quicken their ears to hear. Their eyes to see. Their hearts to believe and their wills to obey you. Before…”

And here Black slowed his usual stately cadence down even further, in case people weren’t getting it.

“…it is. too late.”

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SOURCE: The Washington Post

David A. Fahrenthold

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U. S. Leaders Reach Deal to Raise Debt Ceiling

theoraclemag — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:47:38 +0000

President Obama spoke about a debt deal on Sunday. (Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times)

Two days before the deadline for a possible U.S. government default, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached agreement Sunday on a legislative package that would extend the federal debt ceiling while cutting spending and guaranteeing further deficit-reduction steps.

The proposed $3 trillion deal, which still requires congressional approval, brought some immediate relief to global markets closely watching the situation play out and a nation filled with anger and frustration over partisan political wrangling that threatened further economic harm to an already struggling recovery.

However, there was no guarantee the plan will win enough support to pass both chambers of Congress.

Democratic and Republican leaders in both the House and Senate were briefing their caucuses about the agreement on Sunday night or Monday.

Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, all announced the deal within minutes of each other on Sunday night.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, earlier told CNN that cuts to military spending were a final sticking point.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, told reporters that she needs to see “the final product” in writing before she can decide if she supports it.

Pelosi said she would meet with the House Democratic caucus on Monday to discuss the matter.

“I don’t know all the particulars of what the final product is in writing and what the ramifications will be,” Pelosi said, noting the measure will have an impact for a decade or more. Asked about the outcome, she warned: “We all may not be able to support it or none of us may be able to support it.”

In the face of an August 2 deadline to get new authorization to borrow money or face a possible government default, congressional leaders and the White House were trying to complete the agreement that would extend the debt limit through 2012 — a presidential election year.

Earlier, Reid’s Republican counterpart in the Senate said the two parties were “very close” to reaching a deal that would bring $3 trillion in deficit reduction.

“We had a very good day yesterday,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, told CNN, adding that the two sides “made dramatic progress” in negotiations on a deal that would cut government spending and raise the federal debt ceiling.

Another Republican senator, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, later told reporters he expected a Monday vote on a compromise.

“It feels like they’re going to finish the deal today and then we’ll have the vote tomorrow,” Isakson said, adding he supports the plan under discussion.

Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration agreed that progress has been made.

“If there’s a word right here that would sum up the mood, it would be relief — relief that we won’t default,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said on CNN. “That’s not a certainty, but default is far less of a possibility now than it was even a day ago.”

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SOURCE: CNN

Alan Silverleib and Tom Cohen