10 things to know about McCain

For all the coverage this week of Senator John McCain's background, there are some important things you won't learn about him from the TV networks. His carefully crafted positive image relies on people not knowing this stuff—and you might be surprised by some of it.

Please check out the list below, and then forward it to your friends, family, and coworkers. We can't rely on the media to tell folks about the real John McCain—but if we all pass this along, we can reach as many people as CNN Headline News does on a good night.

Click here to tell us how many people you can pass it on to—and to see our progress nationally:

http://pol.moveon.org/mccain10/

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.¹
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."²
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.³
   
4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."⁴
5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.⁵
6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.⁶
7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."⁷
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.⁸
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."⁹
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.¹⁰

John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network. And if you want us to keep you posted on MoveOn's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mccaintruth/

Sources:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html

"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/

2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us

"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/

3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/

4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/

5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/

6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80

"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home

7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022

"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/

"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251

9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/

"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/

10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/

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celebrity report.....8-4-08

Mrs. Morgan Freeman has had enough! Morgan may have survived the car crash, but his wife, Myrna Colley-Lee, is done with their 24-year old marriage. Earlier this week, the 71-year old Oscar winner was involved in a car accident that almost killed him. Morgan wasn't alone in the car. His passenger was 48-year old Demaris Meyer, who was a friend of Freeman's wife. Myrna, 64, has long suspected her husband of carrying on with her friend, and now the truth comes out with this accident. This marriage has been rocky for awhile, and now they're headed for divorce. Family members have been left stunned by the recent events. While they're happy Morgan survived the crash, they can't believe how "Easy Reader" has humiliated his long suffering wife. He suffered a broken arm, broken elbow and minor shoulder damage. He may have had surgery to repair the damage, but his wife is left with a broken heart. It's a shame that Driving Miss Daisy has caused the end of his marriage.

The marriage is officially over, and Lisa Raye has pawned the ring. Lisa Raye McCoy Missick is ready to move on. She's walking away from her title as First Lady of The Turks & Caicos Islands. It was just a couple of years ago when Lisa Raye married Prime Minister Michael Missick. The fairytale wedding soon turned into a nightmare marriage filled with cheating, lies and scandal. The Prime Minister has moved on as well. He's currently dating BET Video Host Rocsi. She's the host of 106 And Park. Rocsi has been running around with the Prime Minister for the past few months.

Wesley Snipes will have to reimburse the federal government for his tax trial. In addition to the 3-year prison sentence, he must pay the government $217,000. Snipes remains free on bail while his conviction is being appealed.

Jilly From Philly really is in love. Jill Scott's got a new tattoo. She's engaged to be married to her drummer, John Roberts. She got his name tattooed behind her left ear. Roberts also got a tattoo. He's got Jill's name behind his right ear.

Raven Symone has just signed a multi-million dollar deal to come out with her own brand of lip gloss. She was recently dropped from her record label for poor record sales.

Toni Braxton could be Dancing With The Stars this fall. She quit her Las Vegas show this past spring because of heart problems. Now, she's being rumored to be on the new season of the hit ABC show beginning September 23rd.

Reverend Run and his wife Justine have just written a new book, Take Back Your Family. The book is a challenge for America's parents, offering advice on rearing children. Reverend Run and family are featured on the MTV series Run's House.

Sanford & Son, the popular 70's show, is coming out on DVD. The complete series, 17 discs containing all six seasons, comes out on October 28th. The late Comedian Redd Foxx starred as the grouchy junkman and Demond Wilson played his long-suffering son, Lamont.

Oprah Winfrey may make a surprise appearance at The Emmys. Word has it she'll open the show September 21st.

CBS wants Lawrence Fishburne to take over on CSI: Criminal Investigation. If the Oscar nominated actor takes the role, he'll replace William Petersen, who'll exit the show after eight years.

Rapper 50 Cent is talking about his failed relationship with Vivica A. Fox. He tells why he had to dump her. According to 50, she turned their romance into a business opportunity that wasn't beneficial to him. Auntie Viv hasn't been the same since the breakup.

KeKe Palmer has a new movie, Long Shots with Ice Cube, hitting theaters August 22nd. Palmer plays a female quarterback. She's on a roll because this fall, Palmer will also be starring in the Nickelodeon show, True Jackson, V.P. Next year, she'll also play Roxanne Shanté in the hip hop film Vapors.

India.Arie is not coming to Broadway after all. The revival of the Ntozake Shange classic For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enough is being postponed. One of the project's financers has backed out. Whoopi Goldberg was on board as a producer. There's no word on a rescheduling date.

Montel Williams wants to return to TV. After retiring his talk show after a 17-year run, Williams wants to do a diet and lifestyle show called Living Well with Montel. Williams has been very focused on this subject since he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. He's also taken a role on the CBS daytime soap Guiding Light.

Wayne Brady, Where's Your Underwear! At a recent show in Las Vegas, Brady was performing, split his pants and everybody saw everything. He's been ordered to wear underwear while performing from now on.

Cedric The Entertainer is coming to Broadway. Cedric will be one of the stars of American Buffalo along with Comedian/Actor John Leguizamo. American Buffalo is about a group of small time hoods who try to steal a rare coin.

Looks like there will be a Jackson reunion. Next month, they're being honored at the Annual Urban Awards as BMI Icons. Marlon, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Randy have all confirmed. No word on Michael's participation.

Speaking of the Jacksons, Janet wants her little fella to settle down and cut out all that partying. Janet feels like boyfriend Jermaine Dupri's partying is getting out of control. Last week an employee was shot when violence broke out at one of Dupri's events. Janet wants their relationship to continue, but that excessive partying has to go.

R Kelly hasn't learned his lesson. He's dating a teenager, 18 year-old "Baby." "Baby" use to date 19-year old JoJo Simmons, the son of Reverend Run (Run DMC). The 41-year old Kelly is getting ready to release his new CD, 12 Play, which is said to be his most sexual album to date. Earlier this year, Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges.

Uncle Luke is back! Luther Campbell is showing another side of himself with his new VH1 reality show, Luke's Parental Advisory. He shows his other side as a husband, father and businessman. Uncle Luke has come a long way from his 2 Live Crew days. Luke's Parental Advisory airs Monday nights at 10:30pm on VH1.

Regina Belle says she may not do another R&B album again. Her first gospel album, Love Forever Shines featuring the song God Is Good, is doing very well. Belle says this may be her new calling. She's currently the First Lady and Minister of Music at an Atlanta church.

Comedienne Sommore is coming to Comedy Central. The Queen Stands Alone is a film version of her standup act. The show premieres September 13th on Comedy Central.

Aaron McCargo, Jr. of Camden, New Jersey is the Food Network's newest star. McCargo used to be the executive chef at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia. His food show, Big Daddy's House, airs on Sundays at 1:30pm on the Food Network.

Singer Eric Benet has found love with Prince's ex-wife. Benet, who used to married to Halle Berry, is now dating Manuela Testolini, Prince's ex-wife. The two have been dating for a while, but now they are officially a couple. Maybe she'll join Benet at this year's Unity Weekend festivities. Benet is performing Sunday the 24th on the Great Plaza at Penns Landing.

Tyra Banks is going to have a new look. Banks is appearing on the cover of the September issue of Harper's Bazaar as Michelle Obama. Banks is undergoing a full makeover to look like the aspiring first lady.

Now speaking of Mrs. Obama, check her out on the latest issue of Ebony magazine, and the entire Obama Family will be appearing on the new edition of Essence magazine.

Anita Baker, Jennifer Hudson, Dionne Warwick, Yolanda Adams and Fantasia will all be on hand for the all-star salute to Patti LaBelle. LaBelle is being honored at the United Negro College Fund's Evening Of Stars. The program will air in January.

Where's Lauryn Hill? According to the father of her five children, Rohan Marley, Hill will be back on the music scene. She is currently enjoying suburban life and focusing on raising her children. As for reports about Hill dealing with mental issues, Marley says she is not crazy just a perfectionist.

Despite her family and friends objections, the romance between Jennifer Hudson and Punk from I Love New York is still going strong. Hudson has been on a promotional tour for her new album, which is coming out in September. She's been very quiet about her status with Punk, but he wants everyone to know he is her man. He follows her everywhere, and he never hesitates to have his picture taken. Punk loves the spotlight, and he is willing to ride her coattails to get it.

Alicia Keys will be singing the new theme for the latest James Bond movie Quantum Of Solace. The song is called Another Way To Die. The movie, starring Daniel Craig as "James Bond," comes out November 7th.

Bobby Brown will be creating and appearing in a series of anti-drug public service announcements that will air this fall. This was part of a plea bargain due to a drug conviction earlier this year.

Lionel Richie will be teaming up with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for his next project, and he says a Commodores reunion is in the works.

Singer Al Jarreau is hard at work on a new Christmas CD, which is coming out this fall.

Tyler Perry's new movie, The Family That Preys, is set to open in theatres September 12th. The movie stars Alfre Woodard, Kathy Bates, Sanaa Lathan, Robin Givens, Taraji P. Henson, Rockmond Dunbar, Cole Hauser and Tyler Perry. You can check out the trailer right now on his website: http://www.tylerperry.com/_Movies. Just go to Patty's Page.

Singer Robin Thicke is set to release his new CD, Something Else, in September. The CD features the hit single 'Magic.'

The 5th Annual VH1 Hip Hop Honors takes place in October.

WHAT'S THE UNDERGROUND BUZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When is this Pop Singer going to start dressing her age? She's almost 40, and she continues to wear teenage outfits. At a recent TV show, she was lip singing, and the kids in the audience were laughing at her. They kept pointing at her, screaming at her to sit down. The Pop Singer even married a younger man, but it is not helping her with younger fans.

Black. Female. Accomplished. Attacked.

By Sophia A. Nelson
Sunday, July 20, 2008; B01



There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.

It was supposed to be satire, but the caricature of Barack Obama and his wife that appeared on the cover of the New Yorker last week rightly caused a major flap. And among black professional women like me and many of my sisters in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, who happened to be gathered last week in Washington for our 100th anniversary celebration, the mischaracterization of Michelle hit the rawest of nerves.

Welcome to our world.

We've watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails -- being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: "angry black woman." And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated "makeover" to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America .

Sad to say, but what Obama has undergone, though it's on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We're endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting -- being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle -- as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother -- can change that.

"Ain't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren't accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman's dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?

"Thanks to the hip-hop industry," one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are "deemed 'sexually promiscuous video vixens' not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we're considered angry black women who complain. This society can't even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes."

Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they've been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.

Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies "Norbit" or "Big Momma's House," or of the only two black female characters in "Enchanted," an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.

On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.

The reality is that in just a generation, many black women -- who were mostly domestics, schoolteachers or nurses in the post-slavery Jim Crow era -- have become astronauts, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers and PhDs. You name it, and black women have achieved it. The most popular woman on daytime television is Oprah Winfrey. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state.

And yet my generation of African American women -- we're called, in fact, the Claire Huxtable generation -- hasn't managed to become successfully integrated into American popular culture. We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible. It's a term that comes up again and again. "In my profession, white men mentor young whites on how to succeed," a financial executive told me, but "they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."

As someone who recently left a large law firm to work in the corporate sector, I have to agree. I liked my firm, but I always felt that I had to sink or swim on my own. I didn't get the kind of mentoring that I saw white colleagues, male and female, getting all around me. The firm was actually one of the better ones when it came to diversity, and yet of 600 partners, only five were black women.

A 2007 American Bar Association report titled "Visible Invisibility" describes how black women in the legal profession face the "double burden" of being both black and female, meaning that they enjoy none of the advantages that black men gain from being male, or that white women gain from being white.

Invisibility isn't the only problem. I run an organization dedicated to supporting African American professional women and often run empo werment workshops at various conferences. At a recent such workshop, I asked the participants to list some words that would describe how they believe they're viewed in the workplace and the culture at large. These are the kinds of words that came back: "loud," "angry," "intimidating," "mean," "opinionated," "aggressive," "hard." All painful words. Yet asked to describe themselves, the same women offered gentler terms: "strong," "loving," "dependable," "compassionate."

Where does the disconnect come from? Possibly from the way black women have been forced into roles of strength for decades. "Black women are the original multitaskers of necessity," says one nonprofit executive. "We've perfected it because we've been doing it for so long. But people don't appreciate the skill it requires, and they don't recognize the toll it takes on us as human beings."

For all our success in the professional world, we have paid a significant price in our private and emotional lives. A life of preordained singleness (by chance, not by choice) is fast becoming the plight of alarming numbers of professional black women in America . The fact is that the more money and education a black woman has, the less likely she is to marry and have a family.

Consider these stunning statistics: As of 2007, according to the New York Times, 70 percent of professional black women were unmarried. Black women are five times more likely than white women to be single at age 40. In 2003, Newsweek reported that there are more black wome n than black men (24 percent to 17 percent) in the professional-managerial class. According to Department of Education statistics cited by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, black women earn 67 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded to blacks, as well as 71 percent of all master's degrees and 65 percent of all doctoral degrees.

With all the challenges facing professional black women today, we hope that Michelle Obama will defy the negative stereotypes about us. And that, now that a strong professional black woman is center stage, she'll bring to light what we already know: that an accomplished black woman can be a loyal and supportive wife and a good mother and still fulfill her own dreams. The fact that her husband clearly adores Michelle is both refreshing and reassuring to many of us who long to find a good man who will love and appreciate us.

Recently, a friend who's a married professional mother of three girls wrote to me: "I think one of the most interesting things about Michelle Obama is that what she and her husband are doing is pretty revolutionary these days -- and I don't mean running for president. For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life -- let alone a life of service to others -- all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary."

It's how so many black professional women feel. And our hope is that if Michelle Obama becomes first lady, the revolution will come to us at last.


snelson@iaskinc.org


Sophia A. Nelson is a corporate attorney and president of iask, Inc., an organization for African American professional women