Top Clinton aide, Muslim congressman on newly released ISIS kill list

Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

ISIS has featured several prominent Western Muslims on a hit list in its terror magazine, including top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

The New York Post reported that the list, published in the latest edition of Dabiq, also includes Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and British politicians Sayeeda Warsi and Sajid Javid.

ISIS called the Muslims placed on the list “overt crusaders” and “politically active apostates,” who “involve themselves in the politics and enforcing laws of the kufr (or disbelievers).”

Glen Caplin, a Clinton spokesman, told The Post he had no comment about the ISIS hit list.

The terror group also celebrated last month’s Brussels bombings in its latest edition. The extremists warned “What is yet to come will be more devastating and more bitter by the permission of Allah, and Allah prevails.”

ISIS praised the brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui for blowing themselves up in the Belgian capital.

The magazine said the pair were responsible for “all preparations for the raids in Paris and Brussels.”The magazine also credited Najim Laachraoui as the bomb maker for both the Paris and Brussels attacks. He blew himself up at the Brussels aiport.

Hillary Clinton Releases One of 2016’s Biggest Immigration Proposals Yet

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By Zeeshan Aleem  |

Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton will announce Wednesday her intention to open a new federal office in Washington devoted explicitly to overseeing immigration and refugee settlement in the United States, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The office would be responsible for helping coordinate local and national programs, and be in charge of executing recommendations made by an Obama administration task force. An aide to Clinton’s campaign told the LA Times that it would represent “a dedicated place in the White House where integration services are studied and coordinated across the government.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the office would “help undocumented immigrants as well as those here legally.”

The announcement comes on the same day that Clinton is expected to receive an endorsement from the New York State Immigrant Action Fund, an immigrant rights group.

The announcement of the new immigration office doesn’t constitute a bolder or more progressive position on immigration than she’d held in the past, but it does exemplify her campaign theme of being a “progressive who gets things done.”

It’s difficult to imagine her rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, making a similar announcement on the kinds of administrative steps that could help build institutional backing or momentum for his immigration reform agenda.

While Clinton’s announcement doesn’t yet indicate novel policy thinking, it’s probably good politics. Both she and Sanders have been playing up their immigration reform ambitions — and downplaying some of their more conservative positions on immigration policy in the past — in the run-up to the delegate-rich New York primary Tuesday. As Sanders comes within striking distance of Clinton in the polls — a Quinnipacpoll released this week has him trailing her by 13 points — Clinton needs to do everything she can to maintain her edge.

High-skilled visa applications hit record high – again

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By Sara Ashley O’Brien (CNN Money).

This year, 236,000 foreigners applied for the H-1B, the most common visa for high-skilled foreign workers. That’s up 3,000 from 2015 — and up significantly more from 2014 which had 172,500 applications.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will grant just 85,000 H-1B visas (20,000 of which are reserved for master’s degree holders), which it selected on Saturday, April 9, via a lottery process.

For applicants — and employers — the fate of their applications is out of their hands.

“The lottery makes everything very uncertain,” said immigration lawyer Tahmina Watson of Watson Immigration Law, who said she was anticipating that the number of applications would indeed be higher this year.

The growing demand is one of the reasons why some regions — Massachusetts, Colorado and most recently New York City — have introduced programs to help applicants get around the H-1B cap. With the help of universities, a select number of H-1B applicants can bypass the annual quotas.

Silicon Valley types have spoken out about the need for high-skilled immigration reform for innovation’s sake. Without a pathway to stay in the country, many talented techies could take their ideas and companies elsewhere.

After all, according to a recent study from the National Foundation for American Policy, more than 50% of the U.S.’s “unicorns” — or privately-held companies deemed to be worth $1 billion or more — had at least one immigrant founder.

Legendary investor Ron Conway spoke about the ongoing need for immigration reform in February.

“28% of new [tech] startups in American are started by immigrants,” said Conway.

Conway is one of the original backers of FWD.us, a group focused on immigration reform that was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs in 2013.

“We have CEOs who can’t even stay in the country with the rest of their team. That’s the most catastrophic case,” added Conway.

FEC report shows Trump, Clinton have huge spending disparity

Side-by-side, the contrasts between the Trump and Clinton campaign operations are stunning.
Side-by-side, the contrasts between the Trump and Clinton campaign operations are stunning.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have become their parties’ presidential front-runners with diametrically opposed campaign organizations.  Trump has been getting by with an unconventional operation and very little investment in technology or polling or staff — though he has recently hired some seasoned political operatives to avoid getting outfoxed by Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) at a possibly contested Republican National Convention.

And Clinton’s campaign organization could not be more different, an analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending data by The Hill reveals. The Democratic front-runner relies on an army of consultants, has a payroll more than four times the size of Trump’s and has put many millions of dollars more toward expenses traditionally associated with leading presidential campaigns.

Side-by-side, the contrasts between the Trump and Clinton campaign operations are stunning.

Aided by an estimated $2 billion in free airtime from media coverage, Trump’s campaign spent just $33.4 million through the end of February, $24 million of which Trump loaned himself. Clinton’s campaign, on the other hand, spent $129 million through the same period.

During the month of February, Clinton had 783 employees on her payroll, and Trump had 139.

Clinton employs a roster of the biggest names in Democratic politics, including campaign chairman John Podesta; foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan; press liaisons Brian Fallon and Jennifer Palmieri; and President Obama’s longtime chief pollster, Joel Benenson.

Trump, by contrast, employs a team of previously little-known operatives led by his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who has no experience running presidential campaigns and used to work for Americans for Prosperity.

That difference shows up in the bottom line, where Clinton’s spending on her staff during February alone — the most recent figures provided by the FEC — was $2.9 million, nearly as much as Trump has spent on staff since he entered the race in June.

The press teams, too, reflect the overall contrast between the campaigns.

Fallon, Clinton’s press secretary, was previously a spokesman for Sen. Charles Schumer  (D-N.Y.) and former Attorney General Eric Holder, and under Fallon is a team experienced in politics.

Trump’s press operation revolves largely around one woman: Hope Hicks, a former Ralph Lauren model who arrived with only a few years of experience in corporate PR. The billionaire’s most visible on-air spokeswoman is Katrina Pierson, a Texas Tea Party activist with a penchant for controversial statements and little experience in professional politics.

“If you’re not going to have many people, you need to have really good people,” said Stuart Stevens, chief strategist for 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “And Trump has hired, until recently, a bunch of people who would never have been hired to do what they’re doing by a campaign that was sane.”

But Stevens says Trump’s recent move to hire more experienced staffers is an encouraging sign for supporters, as the race appears likely to be decided by a battle for delegates at the party’s July convention in Cleveland.

The hire of GOP powerhouse Paul Manafort as convention manager drew wide praise, and Stevens described the operative as a “big, big talent.” A veteran of Republican campaigns going back to his work for President Gerald Ford at the contested 1976 GOP convention, Manafort, in an appearance Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” described his appointment as “a natural transition” for the campaign.

“Trump was doing very well on a model that made sense, but now, as the campaign has gotten to the end stages, a more traditional campaign has to take place,” Manafort said.

But Trump’s shift comes late in the process and weeks after Cruz and his nationwide ground operation began outflanking Trump’s team by wooing delegates at conventions in North Dakota and Colorado.

If Trump is the nominee, he’ll also need to catch up to Clinton on technology and data if he is to optimize his general election chances.

The Hill’s comparison of Trump’s and Clinton’s spending on technology reveals that Clinton is running a campaign that builds on Obama’s legacy of investing in tech, while Trump’s operation is a shoestring affair.

Both candidates outsource their tech spending, but Trump is using lesser-known firms.

Trump paid more than $500,000 to Giles-Parscale, a San Antonio-based company that, according to its website, has more experience working for restaurants and real estate firms than for political campaigns.

While Trump spent just $1.1 million on technology and data, Clinton’s campaign spent close to $5 million through the end of February, with that money going to cloud computing resources and consultants who help clients deal with marketing data, suggesting a robust analytics and voter targeting operation.

On just about every other category of spending, Trump has invested significantly less than Clinton.

Using his tabloid instincts, Trump has exploited free media coverage and spent less than a third of what Clinton has on advertising. He’s also been relying on his instincts for his message, spending just $270,000 on research and polling, compared with Clinton’s $3.8 million.

And a look through the two campaigns’ rental bills suggests that Clinton has a much larger ground game. She has offices in 28 states, whereas Trump’s campaign has had a presence, as well as many fewer offices, in 15 states. More than half of Trump’s rental payments have been going to Trump-owned properties, including Trump Tower in New York, which houses the campaign’s headquarters. There are only a few categories of spending in which Trump rivals Clinton. One is on private security — each candidate has spent roughly $260,000 on security services — though Trump’s force has dealt with protesters in sometimes-controversial ways.

Another is on private air travel, each spending more than $3 million. Because Trump rides on his own jet, all of the billionaire’s expenditures on private air travel have been recycled back into the aviation company he owns, Tag Air, Inc. The only category in which Trump’s campaign spending exceeds Clinton’s is on merchandise. Trump has spent $3.3 million to Clinton’s $1.3 million, and about a third of Trump’s appears to have been on his “Make America Great Again” baseball caps, according to the FEC reports. Veteran Democratic campaign strategist Joe Trippi said Clinton’s much heavier early investment in all aspects of her campaign would give her a “tremendous” general election edge against Trump.

“Everything that she’s built is a huge, huge advantage over a Trump candidacy, because he has no data,” Trippi told The Hill. “He’s got whatever data the RNC [Republican National Committee] has, assuming he’s the nominee. And he’s got to put the fundraising together.” While Trump has made no effort to court the GOP donor class so far and has made his self-funding a point of pride in his campaign, he has left himself open to the possibility of accepting money from donors for a general election that will likely cost each candidate more than $1 billion.  Lewandowski declined to comment for this story. But Trippi, asked to characterize the Trump campaign operation from what he knows, said: “Up to now, it’s a guy on a surfboard riding a wave. … The problem is if the wave starts to break up.”

Ex-Clinton backer emerges as fierce Sanders surrogate

Turner said she’s not worried about having made an enemy out of one of the nation’s most powerful political dynasties.
Turner said she’s not worried about having made an enemy out of one of the nation’s most powerful political dynasties.

Former Ohio state lawmaker Nina Turner has emerged as one of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s most prominent surrogates, adding another twist to a political career that has rankled the Democratic establishment at every turn.

Hardly a day goes by where the energetic Turner doesn’t appear on television, at a forum or at a rally touting Sanders’s record or defending him against criticism from rival Hillary Clinton

Turner is also one of several prominent African-American supporters working to help the Vermont senator make inroads with black voters, who have so far delivered huge victories to Clinton across the South and helped her build a substantial delegate lead.

Turner’s efforts are all the more surprising because she was once a Clinton supporter.

Former President Bill Clinton endorsed Turner’s 2014 run for Ohio secretary of State, and Turner worked as an unpaid volunteer for Ready for Hillary, the group that laid the groundwork for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Last November, however, Turner switched allegiances, taking a leave of absence from a paid role with the Ohio Democratic Party to be an unpaid advocate for Sanders’s campaign.

“It came down to some soul-searching,” Turner said in an interview with The Hill. “It was actually my husband who said, ‘Baby, I think you should give Sen. Sanders a look. I believe he’s your candidate, because he has the same righteous indignation you have. He stands up for people the way you like to stand up for people.’ ”

Turner said she was at first emotionally drawn to Sanders, moved by his spirit and energy on the campaign trail.

But Turner said she became sold on Sanders when she realized their policy priorities were in alignment.

Turner was raised in Cleveland by a single mother on welfare who lacked access to adequate healthcare and died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Turner was 22 at the time, but her youngest sibling was only 12.

Last week, Sanders questioned whether Clinton was qualified to be president. Bill Clinton called the remark a case of “subconscious” sexism and said his wife is being held to a higher standard because she’s a woman. Turner countered that if that was an example of sexism, perhaps voters should look back to Hillary Clinton’s attacks against then-Sen. Barack Obama from their 2008 primary contests. “She intimated in the strongest way that he was unqualified. Is that racist?” Turner asked. “If they want to do the dance, let’s do the dance, because I was highly offended, as were African-Americans across this country.

The oldest of seven children, Turner emerged from those conditions to become the first in her family to graduate from college. Her son, a police officer in Cleveland, is now a second-generation college graduate.

Turner said universal healthcare and access to affordable higher education are two of her driving issues. She was spurred to back Sanders by his argument that healthcare is a human right and by his proposal to make college tuition at public universities free.

“It was the juxtaposition of my life and what I’ve had to endure so far and how Sen. Sanders stands up for the working poor,” Turner said.

In becoming an advocate for Sanders, Turner has completely turned her back on the Clintons.

In the interview with The Hill, Turner didn’t hold back, criticizing Bill and Hillary Clinton as overly eager to accuse Sanders of sexism.

“It’s desperate,” Turner said. “They really have some nerve.”

Last week, Sanders questioned whether Clinton was qualified to be president. Bill Clinton called the remark a case of “subconscious” sexism and said his wife is being held to a higher standard because she’s a woman.

Turner countered that if that was an example of sexism, perhaps voters should look back to Hillary Clinton’s attacks against then-Sen. Barack Obama from their 2008 primary contests.

“She intimated in the strongest way that he was unqualified. Is that racist?” Turner asked. “If they want to do the dance, let’s do the dance, because I was highly offended, as were African-Americans across this country.”

Turner also noted that Bill Clinton referred to one Black Lives Matter protester who confronted him at an event last week as “girl.”

“Was that sexist?” she asked. “Or is sexism only reserved for white women?”

And Turner rebuked Bill Clinton for getting into a heated exchange with those same Black Lives Matter protesters over the impact of the 1994 crime bill he signed into law. “It was horrible,” she said.

“You’re treating them in a way that’s not respectful to our feelings about these issues,” she continued. “You may not agree with how we feel, but that’s the way some of us feel … that those policies [Clinton] pushed, whether the crime bill or welfare reform, had a disproportionately negative impact on the African-American community that we still have not recovered from to this day.”

Turner said the transition from Clinton supporter to Sanders surrogate has been rough at times.

As a former card-carrying member of the Democratic establishment in Ohio — in addition to working for the state party, she has served as a Cleveland city councilwoman and state senator — Turner said she’s been ostracized by some of her former colleagues.

One woman, Turner said, openly reprimanded her at a Planned Parenthood event, saying she had an obligation to help elect the first woman president.

“It was heavy; it was really heavy,” Turner recalled. “I remember folks asking me if I was sure, do you have to do this? Some had concerns about my political future. That’s how serious this was.”

But Turner said she’s not worried about having made an enemy out of one of the nation’s most powerful political dynasties.

“I’ve been in this game a long time, and I’ve accomplished a lot in this world  without the Clintons,” Turner, 48, said.

“All of the things I’ve accomplished, the Clintons were nowhere in it,” she continued. “So for me to cower in the corner and live in fear about what they may or may not do, that’s not me. My fate is controlled by the Almighty, and they are not the Almighty. They may have some influence on this Earth, but they are not the Almighty.” It’s not the first time Turner has bucked the establishment.

 

In 2011, she infuriated party leaders for mulling a primary challenge to Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), though she backed down.

Before that, she was the only black politician to endorse a Cuyahoga County government restructuring bill. A newspaper in the region with predominantly black readership ran an editorial cartoon depicting Turner as Aunt Jemima.

“That was the worst public thing to happen to me,” Turner said.

And Turner’s shift from Clinton to Sanders is also not the first time she’s foregone what looked like a sure thing in favor of a long shot.

Turner passed on running for reelection in her last year of eligibility for the state senate, opting instead to challenge incumbent Republican John Husted for secretary of State.

She got trounced in what was a big year for Republicans but emerged as a favorite to run for mayor of Cleveland in 2017.

“We’ll see,” Turner said, noting that she admires current Mayor Frank Jackson (D) and won’t challenge him if he seeks a fourth term.

“I’ve got my hands really full right now, and I’m really focused right now,” she said. “I’m humbled that so many people not just in my city, not just in my state, but all across the country really want to see me back in the elected ministry. I’d love to be back there.”

American woman held in Abu Dhabi for refusing to talk to men at airport

Abu Dhabi International Airport.jpg
Abu Dhabi International Airport.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A 25-year old American woman appeared in court Monday on misdemeanor charges for allegedly insulting the United Arab Emirates in public while waiting for a taxi at the Abu Dhabi International Airport.

The National, a government-owned newspaper in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, reported that the woman, who was not named, has been under arrest since Feb. 23. The newspaper says she told the Federal Supreme Court that she was waiting for a taxi at the airport when two men approached and spoke to her in a manner she did not like.

It quoted her as saying that she “refused to engage with them and nothing happened.” The report did not say if evidence was presented against her.

The National says she requested from the court to pay a fine and be released from jail. A verdict was set for May 2.

The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi responded to an Associated Press query by stating that the embassy, “is aware of the case and is providing consular services.”

While liberal on some issues, the UAE has strict laws governing expression. Unlike in many Western countries, defamation is treated in the UAE as a criminal rather than a civil matter. Insulting the UAE’s leaders, or the country itself, can carry a prison sentence and steep fines.

In 2013, a 29-year-old U.S. citizen from Minnesota was tried under a cyber-crimes law and accused of defaming the country’s image abroad for posting a spoof video online about youth culture in the UAE. He spent nine months in prison before being deported and fined $2,700.

 

US B-52s arrives in Qatar to strike ISIS – beautiful photos

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Two US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress aircraft from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, have arrived at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, on Apr. 9, 2016.

The aircraft will operate in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the air war against ISIS replacing the B-1 Lancers, the last of those returned stateside in January, after a 6-month deployment worth 3,800 munitions on 3,700 targets in 490 sorties. By the way, the B-1s could return to the Mideast this summer after they receive additional cockpit upgrades…

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Although the B-52s are capable to perform round-trip missions directly from their homebase as demonstrated in May 2015, when two B-52Hs showed their ability to do on a range in Jordan (a 14,000 miles 30-hour trip to drop some 500-lb GBU-38 JDAM – Joint Direct Attack Munition – bombs in an old-fashioned carpet bombing mission) the about 60 years old “Buffs” (Big Ugly Fat Fellas) will be stationed at Al Udeid in Qatar, the first deployment of the Stratofortress in the region after the Gulf War.

Dealing with the type of mission the B-52s will carry out in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, it will probably be the same of the B-1s: Close Air Support and Air Interdiction delivering a wide variety of PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions), including JDAMs on ISIS positions.

Bill Clinton responds to Black Lives Matter protesters

(CNN)Bill Clinton traded verbal shots in a feisty 15-minute exchange with Black Lives Matter protesters in Philadelphia on Thursday, as he defended his wife’s presidential bid.

The protesters shouted that “black youth are not super predators,” taking issue with a phrase then-first lady Hillary Clinton used in a 1996 speech about violent crime committed by young people. They heckled Bill Clinton for the 1994 crime bill he signed into law as president that cracked down on gangs but also put more non-violent offenders in prison for longer stays.
“You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter,” the former president told protesters.
One protester’s signs declared, in an apparent reference to the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, that “Hillary is a murderer.” The protesters repeatedly shouted over Clinton, ignoring his responses and invoking Clinton’s ties to Wall Street, as well.
In the exchange, Clinton repeatedly said, “I love protesters” — but complained that they wouldn’t let him respond. “Here’s the thing. I like protesters, but the ones that won’t let you answer are afraid of the truth. That’s a simple rule,” Clinton said.
Bill Clinton on Thursday responded to Black Lives Matter activists who began protesting at a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Philadelphia.
Bill Clinton on Thursday responded to Black Lives Matter activists who began protesting at a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Philadelphia.
He said the tougher criminal penalties were added on the advice of then-Sen. Joe Biden, who told Clinton they were necessary to get Republicans on board with the bill, which also included an assault weapons ban, more money for police officers and funding for out-of-school activities for inner-city children.
“I talked to a lot of African-American groups. They thought black lives mattered; they said take this bill because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs. We had 13-year-old kids planning their own funerals,” Clinton said.
He touted Hillary Clinton’s work on school desegregation in Alabama with the Children’s Defense Fund at age 27, saying she was instrumental to ending a practice that allowed white school leaders to exclude black students.
He also defended Hillary Clinton’s use of the phrase “super predators.”
“I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack, and sent them out in the streets to murder other African-American children,” the former president said. “Maybe you thought they were good citizens — she didn’t.”
Hillary Clinton was confronted by protesters earlier this year over the use of the term.
“They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super predators,'” Clinton said in a 1996 speech, when crime was a major public concern, according to polls at the time. “No conscience, no empathy, we can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”
After the protest incident in February, Clinton’s campaign put out a statement saying she shouldn’t have used those words.

Tavis Smiley’s “Black Vote” sham and the Africa-American community

Author and television host, Tavis Smiley.
Author and television host, Tavis Smiley.

It is no longer surprising that this author and television host, Tavis Smiley shows up during presidential campaign periods with either a new book on Black votes, or announces an “advocacy tour on poverty”.

By Anthony Obi Ogbo
By Anthony Obi Ogbo

In the 2008 presidential campaign, for instance, he took advantage of the campaign period to promote his book “The Covenant with Black America.” Again, just before the 2012 Presidential Election, Smiley felt that, late in 2011 was a good time to bargain his personal interests with the voting public. He then teamed up with another confused activist and a Princeton professor, Cornel West to resume what they called ‘Poverty Tour.’ This project crashed.

This has been the regular trend for Smiley, and so, the present presidential season (2016), is no different. Just a few days ago, Smiley showed up with another “attention-grabber”, in his usual fashion, to intimidate the candidates with a so called “Black Votes” designed to woo them with non-existent demographic theories.

He spoke to Yahoo News and Finance Anchor, Bianna Golodryga about his new book, “50 for Your Future: Lessons from down the Road,” and offered unsubstantiated thoughts about the state of the 2016 presidential campaign, and where the candidates stood with black voters. Among all Presidential candidates, Smiley thinks that Bernie Sanders was the only trusted candidate because he was clear on talking about poverty, income inequality, and economic immobility. Then on President Obama’s legacy in terms of race and Black America, Smiley said, “Historians are going to have a hard time trying to juxtapose this reality – how, in the era of the first black president, the bottom fell out for black America.”

The issues about candidates and the prevalent political landscape are not complicated at all. People are listening. From women, the youth, Hispanics, to other demographic segments, the electorates are watching the candidates and are making decisions based on their specific interests. Therefore, African Americans might not need any middleman or agent to assist them with making their choices about the candidates.

Whereas every individual has a right to his or her communal advocacy, we must be clear in categorizing our roles as community leaders and activists, to ensure that it actually serves public interests, as against selfish interests.   Credible community activists always put the community first. This is why famous activists like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, Harriet Tubman, Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks, and thousands of others secured special positions in the Nation’s history of civil rights, social, and political actions.

These days, however, with individuals like Smiley, the practice of community advocacy has been distorted into a bargaining venture for greener pastures. It has become a ground for unscrupulous media opportunists, composing falsehood and instigating uncertainty, while they take advantage of their vulnerable communities to pursue self-centered political careers or business interests. It is appalling to note, that Smiley only goes public with his campaigns to coincide with the general election, and they are usually tagged to either a book launch, or an aimless “poverty” tours.

In the 2008 electioneering season, he had set up web sites and organized discussion forums, claiming that his book, “The Covenant with Black America” was a national plan of action to address the primary concerns of African Americans – from health to housing, from crime to criminal justice, from education to economic parity. In a despicable show of desperation and intoxication for recognition, Smiley tried to use this shambolic setup against a presidential campaign that featured the first African-American presidential nominee by any major party. That wicked plan also failed miserably.

With individuals like Smiley, the practice of community advocacy has been distorted into a bargaining venture for greener pastures. It has become a ground for unscrupulous media opportunists, composing falsehood and instigating uncertainty, while they take advantage of their vulnerable communities to pursue self-centered political careers or business interests.

As if that was not enough, Smiley showed up again just before the 2012 Presidential Election,   to resume his President Obama witch-hunting. He teamed up with another confused activist, and a Princeton professor, Cornel West to initiate their so called ‘Poverty Tour.’ Both Smiley and West said they hoped to jump-start a national conversation about poverty and political action in four battleground states before the elections. This tour crashed because it had no significant mission, but was created out of selfishness; to threaten the political landscape with their sham “Black vote” crusade and take advantage of the moment.

The campaign season is here again. The priority for any credible community advocate that is passionate about the African-American communities should be how to inspire the community’s collective civic participation in the socio-political process. Activists and Community advocates should be concerned about preparing their community for massive voter-turnouts. Community Advocates who are genuinely interested in their communities should, most definitely not be taking advantage of voter vulnerability by selling books, or swaging uncorroborated poll theories. The one thing that is crystal clear in this constant, consistent, and predictable display of desperation is that Smiley does not represent anybody or the community he claims to promote. Smiley represents himself alone. Using the concerns of the African American community as a trick to bargain political interests or boost a shaky media career would further cripple his credibility.

Long Island High School Valedictorian, Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna Accepted to all 8 Ivy League Colleges

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Long Island high school student Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna learned she was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools she applied to in the midst of a varsity badminton game.

Uwamanzu-Nna was on a break from playing when she used her phone to check online at 5 p.m. on March 31, the exact time the Ivies were set to notify applicants of their decisions.

Going in alphabetical order, she saw that Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Dartmouth had said yes.

When Uwamanzu-Nna got to Harvard, “she ran out of the gym screaming, ‘Oh my God, I got into Harvard’ and she was crying and we were all crying,” says one of her best friends and badminton teammate Alanis Smith, 18.

The other team stopped the game to congratulate her.

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“I was so shocked, and it is still very surreal,” Uwamanzu-Nna, the Elmont Memorial High School valedictorian with a 101.64 GPA, tells PEOPLE.

She was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“I owe it to my family for encouraging me,” the teen says, “and helping me realize I am limitless and have so many opportunities. They told me to dream big. They always wanted me to find my full potential.”

While Uwamanzu-Nna doesn’t know which school she’ll attend, she knows her course of study: A dual major of sustainable development and biochemistry.

“My parents just want me to go somewhere that makes me happy,” she says. She has plans to visit as many schools as possible before the May 1 final decision date.

Last year, another Elmont senior, Harold Ekeh, was accepted to all eight Ivies. He selected Yale.

Uwamanzu-Nna, of Elmont, N.Y., is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who instilled in her the value of education.

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“Where I grew up in Africa, we were told that with education you can achieve your dreams, even if you don’t have money,” says her father, Tobias, who holds the advanced degree of Doctor of Physical Therapy and works for the New York City school system.

Tobias and his wife, Basillia, came to the U.S. in 1994. Their first-born, Johnson, 18, now a freshman at Cornell, has provided lifelong motivation for Augusta, says Tobias.

“She always wanted to compete with him,” Tobias says, “do what he was doing, in terms of academics.”

And academics didn’t always come easy, Augusta says, admitting she’s sometimes struggled with schoolwork.

“Yes, I am not perfect. I don’t want to share my lowest grade because it is kind of embarrassing,” she says, noting biology is a favorite subject, while physics, not so much.

Cement, however, is a keen interest.

Uwamanzu-Nna was among 40 U.S. teenagers this year who was named a finalist in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search for figuring out how to create a new and stronger cement seal for off-shore drilling oil wells by adding a clay ingredient.
She was motivated by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, because “the spill was caused by an inadequate cement seal,” she says.

But Uwamanzu-Nna also became interested in cement at the end of ninth grade because it was something different than the usual high school science research oftentimes focused on biomedical sciences.

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“I decided to take a more unconventional route that no one around me was pursuing,” she says.

Belief in herself is a big key to Uwamanzu-Nna’s success. After doing cement experiments in her basement, the teen decided she wanted to work in the lab of a top cement researcher at Columbia University. So she emailed the researcher, Shiho Kawashima, and got a no.

But Uwamanzu-Nna did not take no for an answer, recalls her high school science research teacher, Michelle Flannory. The determined high school student continued to email the professor about her ongoing work in cement.

Last summer, Uwamanzu-Nna was accepted in the lab. “I think that not taking no for an answer has served her well,” Flannory says. “Now Dr. Kawashima says to her, ‘You have to come back to me to do your PhD.'”

Proud dad Tobias credits this dogged determination to Augusta’s mom.

“My wife told her nothing comes easy,” he says, “and I told them my story, coming from Africa nothing was easy, but you can’t take no for an answer, and there is a reward in hard work.”

Yet it’s not all about academics for Uwamanzu-Nna. She also created a dance group that has raised about $2,000 to benefit people in Nigeria, she mentors other students and she is very active in the Future Business Leaders of America organization.

She also started a study group called “Winning Team” last year to deal with the stress of advanced placement classes, and loves to cook for her whole family.

“Now everyone is getting a peek at how amazing my best friend is,” says Smith. “And I’m so happy for her, so happy she is getting the recognition she deserves.”

 

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