Rob Shearer, who has been following the progress of legislation to force the Tennessee Department of Education to recognize as valid diplomas from home schools and church-related schools, says the victory hasn't been won yet. In a comment to this post, he writes:
Not so fast... The Department of Education has so far succeeded in declaring all homeschoolers' high school diplomas to be invalid. Rep. Bell's bill escaped the House Ed Committee without being hijacked, but it is now sitting in the Calendar & Rules Committee where it may be quietly allowed to die. If that happens, the Department will have succeeded in disenfranchising thousands of high school graduates by bureaucratic fiat.When Shearer says the Department of Ed is "disenfranchising thousands of highschool graduates by bureaucratic fiat," here is what he is talking about:It is an outrage. We have a shortage of good police officers. We have a shortage of good daycare workers - but the department can't stand it that someone out there might be getting an education outside their control.
Cindy Benefield, the Tennesseee Department of Education Executive Director of Field Services, who oversees the state's homeschooling office, recently declared that a diploma from a church-related school is "not worth the paper it is written on." That is not just the idle opinion of one uninformed bureaucrat, but has become Department policy. Bredesen's education commissioner, Tim Webb, told four legislators in April that until the legislature passes a law stating that the diplomas given by church-related schools are acceptable, they aren't acceptable for certain kinds of employment.
And the state is now now preventing people who hold diplomas from church-related schools or home schools from holding certain jobs. For example: a police officer in Roane County, who holds a diploma from a church-related school, then graduated the police academy with perfect grades, has been demoted and prohibited from continuing to serve as a police officer - even though he also graduated from the local community college. The Rockwood police officer has been forced to take a desk job until he takes and passes the GED because the Department of Education says his 2001 diploma from a church-related school is invalid.
The fallout goes beyond that one officer. Suspect he has arrested may be set free because he can not appear as a witness in the case because the state, which regulates the profession, says his diploma is invalid.
All professions which are regulated by the state and which require a high school diploma are at risk of this kind of intrusion by the state.
In 2004, the Tennessee Department of Human Services forced a Jackson day care center to fire an employee - on the job since 2000 - because her diploma came from a church-related school. The day care center owner was told she had to be fired because "her diploma is not from a school approved by the DOE."
The aforementioned Cindy Benefield is currently working with all 9 regional offices of the Department of Education training their employees that high school diplomas from church related schools are not accepted by the state.
Why is the Bredesen administration attacking church-related schools in this manner?
The first purpose of a liberal bureaucracy is self-preservation. Church-related schools and home-schooling represent unwanted competition for the state-controlled public education system and the power and money that it sends to the public education bureaucracy and the teachers' union.
Kay Brooks is following the progress of Rep. Mike Bell's legislation, House Bill 1652, and its Senate counterpart, SB 1827, sponsored by Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, at the website TNHomeEd.com. You can track the legislation's progress on the legislature's website here.
Belmont University has launched a website for the presidential debate it will host in October.
May 8, 2008
Another Terrorist Endorses Obama
...And Obama's response is to attack John McCain for mentioning it. But seriously, it is unsurprising that Hamas would prefer Barack Obama. He, after all, has a foreign policy advisor - Robert Malley - whose enthusiasm for Hamas and disdain for Israel is well-known thanks to Malley's own published writings. In short, Malley thinks the United States should "do business" with Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel and eradication of the Jews who live there.
The good news: McCain's response to Obama was on target.
Today, Senator Obama is complaining about comments John McCain made about a senior Hamas advisor stating that Hamas would welcome Senator Obama's election as president. Indeed, on April 13th, senior Hamas political advisor Ahmed Yousef said, 'We don't mind - actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance.'Which means McCain won't be looking for ways to "do business" with our enemies.The McCain campaign has never suggested that Senator Obama supports Hamas' agenda, but it is more than fair to raise this quote about Senator Obama because it speaks to the policy implications of his judgment.
Just today, the president of Iran, whom Senator Obama wants to meet with unconditionally, called the state of Israel a 'stinking corpse.' Iran is the paymaster and state sponsor of Hamas.
In his victory speech this week, Senator Obama stated that 'wisdom' is meeting with our enemies, including Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Raul Castro. John McCain couldn't disagree more. Rather than giving tyrants and dictators the prestige of meeting with an American president, John McCain will instead meet with the champions of human freedom around the world and opposition leaders fighting for liberty .
Things I'd Blog About At Length If I Had The Time
Hot Air explains "the Basra narrative.". ... Ross Douthat explains why the Republican Party is now the working man's party in "The Party of Sam's Club." ... Sam Harris looks at the ironic response of free society to radical Islam's attack on freedom of speech in "Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks." ... Sen. Lamar Alexander is making sense on energy policy. ...
Bredesen Administration: Some Public Records Aren't
Matt Pulle reveals the Bredesen administration's rather bizarre (and wrong) claim that some emails created by state government employees on state government computers aren't public records, even though state law clearly says they are. The Bredesen administration is no friend of open government, and more and more folks are starting to realize that.
May 7, 2008
120 mph, 200 mpg
Volkswagen is developing the ultimate commuter car for the 2010 model year - it gets 200 mpg. Gasoline could hit $40 a gallon and it will steal be cheaper to drive than my current car. Of course, if cars like this do hit the market at a reasonable price, gasoline won't hit $40 a gallon. Falling demand would mean falling prices - and the Saudis would increase production in order to drive oil and gas prices lower to reduce demand for super-high-mpg cars.
Matte Pulle - surely the odds on favorite to replace the irreplaceable Liz Garrigan as editor of the Nashville Scene - has a hilarious piece in this week's edition of the paper's "Desperately Seeking the News" column that in one fell swoop exposes the Bredesen administration's rather political approach to complying with open records requests, and the governor's wife's rather haughty attitude toward her critics, based on an email the administration deliberately kept from public eyes for four months. Oh, and Pulle notices what we at the Tennessee GOP noticed about the financing of the ballroom addition to the the governor's mansion: its "shifty economics."
[The] questionable financing for the project was one of the reasons the TCPR wanted to review the administration's emails in the first place. Trying to figure out what parts of the project were paid by private donations and what was covered by tax dollars leads you down a long and convoluted road of problem solving. A quick review of other emails the center obtained - Desperately received them right at press time - raises many questions about whether the administration has used some sort of creative shell game to pay for the less controversial aspects of the renovation with public dollars."There's no doubt it was a shell game.
P.S. The Bredesen administration also is deliberately delaying the release to me of a single public document related to the ballroom project, which I requested 57 days ago. Given that they know where the document is, the only possible explanation is that the administration has decided that, for political reasons, they don't want to comply with the state's open records laws in this case.
WSMV reporter Cara Kumari live-blogs the governor's budget cuts announcement, beating all other media in bringing the details to the public. That's two days in a row that broadcast bloggers have beaten the ink-stained wretches. Blogging is the most agile news reporting medium ever invented.
Exit question: Why do TV bloggers often out-perform newspaper bloggers? Some thoughts at MeshMediaStrategies.com...
Update: Mike seems to think I'm showing contempt for print reporters by referring to them as "ink-stained wretches." What he must not know is that the phrase "ink-stained wretches" is common and affectionate term for print journalists. No less a political journalist than the great Jules Witcover even titled his 16th book, a memoir, The Making of an Ink-Stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat
Current and former ink-stained wretches like myself don't mind the term at all.
Also, if Mike had read the piece at MeshMediaStrategies.com, he would have learned that I believe it is the ink-stained wretches, and the media outlets that employ them, who possess the long-term advantage in the new-media era, in part because they are so good at what they do.
May 6, 2008
Obama Wins For Losing
Regarding Tuesday's Democrat primaries in North Carolina and Indiana: Barack Obama won another state in which he has virtually chance to defeat John McCain to win in November, while Hilary Clinton wins another swing state. North Carolina was won twice by Reagan, twice by the first George Bush, twice by the second George Bush, and even by Bob Dole in 1996. Indiana, on the other hand, went for Reagan twice and George W. Bush twice, but voted for the first George Bush only once, in 1988, then gave its votes to Clinton twice.
Obama continues to lead in the Dem delegate count because he keeps winning primaries in states he is virtually certain to lose in the fall - states like Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Utah, Louisiana and Mississippi. Clinton, meanwhile, keeps winning swing states the Dems have to have to win in November.
UPDATE: I'm wrong. Indiana didn't go for Clinton twice. It went for Bush 1 twice, and then Dole.
But the overall picture is still that Obama is winning big in states he likely can't win in November.
And a blogger using Google shall lead them... (Congrats to Christian Grantham for the big scoop.)
Bredesen's Educrats Attack Home-Schoolers, Church Schools
A coalition of Tennessee home-schoolers and church-related schools have beaten back an attempt by a group of Democrat lawmakers and Tennessee Department of Education bureaucrats to declare their diplomas invalid for the purposes of certain kinds of employment.
I must say, I've listened to some of our public-school-educated Democrat lawmakers talk. And I've listened to my two home-schooled nephews - one with a master's degree in physics, the other with dual college degrees in theology and computer science - talk, and there is no question who among them received the superior education.
Some bloggers appear to have caught Tennessee Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr in an untruth about the state's tax on digital music downloads, thanks to a ruling approved by Farr himself and issued just a few weeks ago which categorically states that "songs downloaded onto the hard drive or accessed via the Internet are not subject to the sales and use tax because the music is delivered electronically, which is not taxable as sales of telecommunications services under Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-6-102(81)(B)(ix) (Supp. 2007) or as sales of tangible personal property under Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-6-102(80) (Supp. 2007)."
See: TerryFrank.net and Kleinheider at Post Politics.
It looks like the Bredesen administration has been illegally collecting sales tax on music downloads since Jan. 1, 2008, and that Farr is now pushing "technical correction" legislation to amend the tax code in order to make legal the tax they're already collecting. In other words, the technical corrections legislation will institute a new tax on digital music downloads.
Farr's explanation misleading spin is that the ruling letter, dated March 12, 2008, is actually several months old and doesn't reflect changes to the law that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008. But the ruling letter itself belies that claim as it references on multiple occasions in its footnotes those changes that went into affect on Jan. 1, 2008.
As of today, no new law has been passed since the Department stated on March 12, 2008, that digital music downloads are not subject to the state's sales and use tax. As you were previously warned and more than once, the Revenue Department's "technical corrections" legislation now pending before the General Assembly contains a provision to levy a new tax on digital music downloads. That's not a "technical correction." It's a policy change.
This is the same administration and Revenue crew that slipped a $64 million gift to Nissan into law and also instituted a new tax on propane for your backyard barbecue grill via previous "technical corrections" legislation.
Update: I'm told Farr claims that in approving the ruling letter he did consider the new law, but just misinterpreted it. But that makes no sense - if the law already authorizes charging sales tax on digitally delivered products such as downloaded music, no "technical correction" would be necessary.
I'm hearing that the fireworks are only beginning on this, and that some major organizations representing some rather large corporations are about to get involved in the fight - and they aren't happy with the way the Revenue Department has, in the words of one, "duped" them into collecting a tax that didn't exist.
Is it possible that the existing statute really doesn't authorize the tax, but that the Revenue Department decided to go ahead late last year and tell companies to start collecting it anyway, while planning to implement the tax via this year's "technical corrections" bill?
Incidentally, major tech states like California have rejected this kind of tax.
Update: Welcome Instapundit readers.
Update: Tennessee GOP press release.
Jay Leno Explains the Democrats' "Energy Policy"
Thirteen years ago, the Republican-led Congress passed legislation to open a tiny sliver of frozen mud plain on Alaska's northern coast to oil drilling that would have given America access to an oil field with the equivalent of what we'll be importing from Saudi Arabia over the next 30 years. Democrat President Bill Clinton vetoed the legislation. Now, oil is $120 a barrel. And Democrats are still fighting every attempt to increase domestic oil production. That is why you are now paying close to $4 for a gallon of gas. [Hat tp: The Foundry]
Nigerian Terrorists Toast Obama
A group of murdering terrorists in Nigeria hold Barack Obama "in high esteem," reports Reuters:
Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria's oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.[Hat tip: Mike]The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).
"The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.
So... who is MEND?
...read more
May 4, 2008
At Least He Didn't Claim To Have Voted For It Before He Voted Against It
The Kingsport Times News reports on the case of the mysteriously unrecorded vote, starring state Rep. Nathan "No Vote" Vaughn.
Update: The legislation at issue would have caused ex-lawmakers convicted of felonies to lose their state-paid health insurance, just as they already lose their state pension. In the committee hearing, a motion was made to refer the legislation to a committee that has already closed for the year, effectively killing the legislation, so a "No" vote would be a vote to keep the legislation alive, while an "Aye" vote was a vote to kill the legislation.
According to the Times News, Vaughn is now claiming he voted "No" - to keep the legislation alive. Is that true? Let's check the video - you can watch video of the committee hearing on the state's website. The vote comes 31 minutes and 32 seconds into the video. Vaughn is not heard voting no. In fact, no legislators are heard voting "No," though some are heard voting "Aye."
After the voice vote, no roll call vote is taken. At that point, members who want their position on the bill clearly recorded for posterity, public and press, have the option of asking the clerk to record their vote. Several members of the committee did just that, and asked to be recorded as voting "No."
The record shows Vaughn did not vote to do that, and the video of the hearing shows that Vaughn did not speak in favor of the legislation, which was actively opposed by several Memphis and West Tennessee Democrat lawmakers on the committee.
May 2, 2008
Deleting Trust
A reader of this blog sent me a cryptic message that one of our local dailies was actively deleting readers' comments posted to the paper's blogs, and in some cases was trying to "out certain subscribers depending on their viewpoint." I don't know the details or if the accusations are false, true or over-stated. I don't know if it involves readers' comments on staff-written blogs or things posted by readers on the paper's community blogs, but I do have some thoughts over at Mesh Media Strategies about how media companies ought to manage their blog comment sections.
It has now been 52 days since I made a rather routine open-records request to the Bredesen administration, and specifically Department of Finance & Administration public information officer Lola Potter, for the video taken of blasting (for that underground ballroom) at the governor's mansion construction site. In the last two weeks, I have attempted again to contact Potter and administration attorney Janet Kleinfelter - whom Potter brought into the situation - and have been ignored, in violation of state law.
I'd write a longer update, but there has been no movement, and no attempt to follow the law, by the administration since I posted this update on April 16.
Meanwhile, as the Tennessee Center for Public Policy's lawsuit is pending against Potter and the administration for their willful failure to provide requested open records for more than nine months, today's Tennessean tells the story of yet another instance in which Potter and her bosses at F&A went out of their way to deny a member of the public (in this case, a reporter) access to what clearly is a public record.
City Paper to Mayor Dean: Commit Political Suicide
The City Paper urges Nashville Mayor Karl Dean to try to overturn the will of the people by challenging the city charter provision that requires public approval via referendum of some (not all) property tax rate increases. But the paper gets it wrong about who "showed up" and who didn't when the issue was debated:
Two years ago, the city politically progressive set did not show up for the biggest public policy battle ever waged at the ballot box in this city. Anti-tax advocates led by master grassroots organizer Ben Cunningham successfully brought in a petition drive to put the issue of Metro property taxes on the ballot.The charter amendment was not slipped by voters by a wily but small group of anti-taxers. It passed with more than 77 percent of the vote, gaining a majority of the vote in virtually every precinct in the city. The charter amendment proved popular with taxpayers across all race, age, education, gender and income demographics. It proved popular with Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, white and minority, blue collar and white collar, men and women, and people of all education levels.Specifically, Cunningham's referendum asked Metro voters if they wanted to restrict Metro Council from ever raising their property taxes unless it was sent to a referendum of Metro voters for approval.
Despite the concept being a total public policy folly, it received little to no appreciable opposition from any quarter of Metro government or from other quarters of local leadership in the community. Former Mayor Bill Purcell said little to nothing about the measure, and the members of the Metro Council - many still sitting in their seats - wouldn't lift a finger to public campaign against it.
As I wrote during last year's Nashville mayoral campaign, "The charter amendment giving Nashvillians the right to vote on property tax increases may be the single most popular tax law on the books in Nashville, as voters overwhelmingly expressed a desire for more participatory democracy and more control over tax rates."
The simple fact is that either the group the City Paper calls the "politically progressive" represents less than 23 percent of Nashville voters, or a chunk of them voted for the tax-limiting amendment.
I predicted the day after voters passed the amendment in November 2006, that the city's political establishment would go to court to overturn the amendment, and that may indeed happen some day.
But even though there is conflicting legal opinion as to whether the state constitution permits such referenda, Karl Dean would be committing political suicide to challenge the amendment in court, and he'd be taking a majority of the city council over the cliff with him. Consider this: the amendment is the law until successfully challenged in court and the challenge sustained through the appeals process - and that legal challenge can't even begin until after the Metro Council passes a property tax hike and either refuses to submit it to a referendum and forces the tax-limiters to file suit, or sends it to a referendum and forces the executive branch or some of those "politically progressive" types to file a lawsuit.
Either way they go, it will be seen as an attempt to overturn the expressed will of the people of Nashville for the purpose of ramming through a tax increase without getting voters' approval as they expressly demanded, or for the purpose of imposing a tax already rejected by voters.
Legally, "progressives" who object to the amendment's injection of a little more democracy into the tax process in Nashville may have a leg to stand on. Politically they hold a loser hand for by seeking to overturn in the courts what the people of Nashville overwhelmingly voted into law would forever mark themselves as rejecting the will of the people they are supposed to serve.
If Ben Cunningham's charter amendment had passed with 50.01 percent of the vote, it would have merely changed Nashville's city charter. But it passed with 77 percent of the vote. That changed the political playing field in Nashville.
Unless Nashville's Metro Council and Mayor Karl Dean want to commit political suicide, I suggest they get about the business of learning how to run the city government with the resources and revenue they already have.
John Hinderaker considers the Democrats' incoherent energy policy, to the extent that they have one, as outlined by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
The Democrats' domestic policies are an incoherent jumble: they want lower gasoline and heating oil prices, but they block the very things, oil drilling and the construction of new refineries, that would actually reduce them.Democrats also have perennially proposed upping the federal gas tax by a big number. They secretly want you to pay European-level prices for gas, so you drive less and take mass transit more.
May 1, 2008
The New American Courthouse
AmericanCourthouse.com, a blog I'm proud to say I had a little something to do with its launch, officially debuted Thursday (May 1). But the blog has actually been up and running for more than a month and drew more 1,120 unique visitors in April, and served up more than 12,000 pages of content. Not bad for a quietly launched blog. The focus of the blog is judicial reform at the state level. (You may recall that I've linked from here to a few of American Courthouse blogger Dan Pero's pieces about Tennessee's Judicial Selection Commission.)
Free non-expiring subscription to BillHobbs.com for the first person who can identify the courthouse in the new blog's logo.
Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University mulls the implications of finding - or not finding - life on Mars, and theorizes in great detail why if we find even the lowest of life forms there it suggests that it will soon (in evolutionary terms) be lights-out for the human race.
In a nutshell, Bostrom's argument is this:
Given the sheer number of solar systems and planets in the universe, the existence of life on another planet so close to our own would suggest that the there is life on many planets.
Because we haven't found any evidence of life elsewhere in the galaxy or universe, it suggests that, despite hundreds of billions of years, life has not evolved anywhere to the point of being able to move out from its home planet into space.
That suggests that there is some "great filter" in the evolutionary process for all species that prevents any species from evolving to the point that it can colonize the galaxy or the universe.
The existence of life on Mars would suggest that, on our evolutionary timeline, our "great filter" is ahead of us, not behind us. Bostrom theorizes that this filter is likely the development of some technology which leads to the destruction of the species before it can move out from its home planet into space.
Thus, life on Mars = we're doomed to destroy ourselves, and soon, before our rockets and technology are advanced enough to colonize space.
It's a complex argument built on numerous assumptions, and an intriguing read, but Bostrom forgot one alternate possibility.
If you believe the alternate possibility, then bacterial life on Mars - or intelligent, technologically advanced life on the Planet Zeebo in the 43rd solar system past Alpha Centauri - doesn't portend doom for humanity at all.
The Tennessean reports that Gov. Phil Bredesen won't tap the state's record-level "rainy day" reserves to prevent or at least delay layoffs of large numbers of state employees as the state's revenue deficit balloons (and the folly of his $1.5 billion annual spending increases becomes clear).
So, apparently, workers are just "baggage" to be thrown overboard, to use Bredesen's own description.
It occurs to me that Bredesen is reacting to this (self-inflicted) fiscal crisis the way you would expect an old HMO executive to do: He's cutting people to protect profits.
April 30, 2008
Hybrid Airplanes?
A solar-hydrogen fuel cell hybrid airplane? I'll believe it when I see it. Details at the blog of the Fuel Cell Store.
Check Under the Hood This Time
City Paper reporter John Rodgers makes a smart suggestion:
In a speech to the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce today, Gov. Phil Bredesen said ECD Commissioner Matt Kisber's "pipeline" is full of companies looking to move to Tennessee, "including some really, really big ones."He's not the first to make that recommendation. Though I must say, if amid a major revenue shortfall, spending cuts and state employee layoffs Gov. Bredesen tries to slip another huge giveaway to a corporate entity past the legislature via the "technical corrections" tax code legislation, the way he mislead the legislature into unknowingly writing a $64 million check to Nissan a few years ago, all hell ought to break loose, politically speaking, and I suspect it would.Hmm. Watch out for the incentives included in the so-called "technical corrections bill" that's up for debate.
Is your hybrid or all-electric car killing you slowly? The New York Times investigates...
Wonder why gas prices are so high, and likely to go higher in the future? It's partly because of the stupidity of the Democrat-controlled Congress that all too often does the bidding of its left-wing enviromentalist wacko puppeteers.
What Does Naifeh Know That You Don't?
Should Tennessee taxpayers continue to pick up the tab for health insurance and benefits for lawmakers convicted of felony crimes in connection with their official elected-office duties? Most taxpayers probably would say no, but Democrat House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh on Tuesday made sure that all those Democrat ex lawmakers currently sitting in prison doing time for accepting bribes during the Operation Tennessee Waltz investigation will continue to get their taxpayer-funded health care.
Legislation that would have stripped state-funded health benefits from convicted felon ex-lawmakers sailed through the Senate, passing 32-0 but was killed Tuesday by a Naifeh-controlled House committee.
Frankly, I'm less concerned about whether corrupt-and-already-convicted Democrat legislators like Ward Crutchfield, Kathryn Bowers and John Ford get their taxpayer-funded health coverage and more interested in finding out for whom Naifeh and too many Democrats in the Democrat-controlled state House think the benefit should be continued in the future.
I have been wondering when to buy an iPhone for my wife and myself, wanting to avoid being one of those unlucky folks who buy too soon only to see Apple either greatly discount the phone or release a new version of the phone with some great new features I wish mine had. Well, I think I've finally figured it out: This summer.
That's when, according to Fortune magazine, AT&T will release the new 3G iPhone and sell the 8-gig version for $199 for customers who sign a new 2-year wireless contract. When that happens' we'll be joining the iPhone revolution.
I'm looking forward to blogging from Legislative Plaza and the campaign trail on my iPhone.
By the way, iPhone owners, Fortune reports that the new 3G iPhone "will be 2.5 mm thinner than the 11.7 mm original" and "will also have a GPS chip for navigation and other location-based services."
April 29, 2008
Is Barack Bigger Than Wright's Bite?
Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says criticism of Wright for his fiery rhetoric is an attack on "the black church." It's rather presumptious of Rev. Wright to claim to speak for the entire African-American Christian community in America, but I wonder if Wright thinks that Obama - now that he's denounced Wright's recent racist, bigoted rhetoric today during a press conference in Winston-Salem, N.C. - has attacked "the black church" in America.
I'm guessing he does - which means you can expect an inevitably over-the-top shrill response coming any day now from Rev. Wright. I'm guessing the Obama campaign isn't looking forward to that with much glee.
Update: Much of the discussion of Wright has mentioned something called "black liberation theology." It is somewhat similar to the liberation theology that has become somewhat common in Catholic churches, especially in South America, in recent years. Eyeblast.tv takes a look at the Marxist roots of liberation theology and its offshoot, black liberation theology. Some of the mini-documentary is a bit over the top, but the section on liberation theology is eye-opening.
