(Akiit.com) Republicans and Democrats on Thursday derided President Barack Obama’s claim that U.S. air attacks against Libya do not constitute hostilities and demanded that the commander in chief seek congressional approval for the 3-month-old military operation.

In an escalating constitutional fight, House Speaker John Boehner threatened to withhold money for the mission, pitting a Congress eager to exercise its power of the purse against a dug-in White House. The Ohio Republican signaled that the House could take action as early as next week.

“The accumulated consequence of all this delay, confusion and obfuscation has been a wholesale revolt in Congress against the administration’s policy,” said Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee who has backed Obama’s actions against Libya.

The administration, in a report it reluctantly gave to Congress on Wednesday, said that because the United States is in a supporting role in the NATO-led mission, American forces are not facing the hostilities that would require the president to seek such congressional consent under the War Powers Resolution.

The 1973 law prohibits the military from being involved in actions for more than 60 days without congressional authorization, plus a 30-day extension. The 60-day deadline passed last month with the White House saying it is in compliance with the law. The 90-day mark is Sunday.

In the meantime, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has maintained his grip on power, and the White House says if the mission continues until September, it will cost $1.1 billion.

Instead of calming lawmakers, the White House report and its claims about no hostilities further inflamed the fierce balance-of-power fight.

“We have got drone attacks under way, we’re spending $10 million a day,” Boehner told reporters. “We’re part of an effort to drop bombs on Gadhafi’s compound. It doesn’t pass the straight-face test, in my view, that we’re not in the midst of hostilities.”

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a combat veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, scoffed at the notion.

“Spending a billion dollars and dropping bombs on people sounds like hostilities to me,” Webb said in an interview.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., called the claims “really totally bizarre.” Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., said telling Congress and Americans “that this is not a war insults our intelligence. I won’t stand for it and neither will my constituents.”

The White House pushed back, singling out Boehner and saying he has not always demanded that presidents abide by the War Powers Resolution.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Boehner’s views “stand in contrast to the views he expressed in 1999 when he called the War Powers Act `constitutionally suspect’ and warned Congress to `resist the temptation to take any action that would do further damage to the institution of the presidency.”

Boehner’s spokesman, Brendan Buck, dismissed Carney’s reference to a “decade-old statement.”

“As speaker, it is Boehner’s responsibility to see that the law is followed, whether or not he agrees with it,” Buck said.

The White House response has complicated efforts for several Democrats and Republicans urging their colleagues to hold off on any action that could encourage Gadhafi. In a Senate speech, McCain said it would be a mistake for the United States to cut and run from its allies and the mission.

Speaking directly to Republicans, McCain asked, “Is this the time to ride to the rescue of the man who President Reagan called the mad dog of the Middle East?”

McCain said later that he and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., would push ahead with a resolution authorizing the U.S. mission in Libya with conditions. The committee twice postponed meetings to finalize the resolution. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said he is working on a joint resolution authorizing force, barring ground troops and setting an end date.

“The convoluted definition of hostilities backs us into a corner,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
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(Akiit.com) Great people who have experienced great accomplishments will likely tell us that the pursuit of a dream is always an agenda to be pushed, a story to be told and a life willing to be lived, not from the eyes of others, but resonating from the heart, soul and spirit of someone who is willing to say, “This is who I am and what I believe in, and if I am not all that I was meant to be, then I am surely less than what I was created to be.” We embrace this not only as a creed of wisdom for professional success, but also as a position of empowerment to facilitate and navigate our way through life in order to possess the prize or at least discover who we are in the process.

The success of an African American is not just about who we know but how far we are willing to travel down roads that may throw us lots of curves, provoke self doubt and even cause us to be delayed by the status-quo. As African Americans, we are still faced with the challenge of figuring out the design of the road before we can use our own architectural prowess to widen the lanes to avoid the wrecks and obstructions. It is wonderful to now see the presence of African American leadership on many fronts; from the intelligence and charisma of our Chief Executive Officer, to the character and brilliance of a talk show hostess and entrepreneur that has forever changed how we view the media industry by setting new standards of excellence and using the industry as an anomalous partner to be benevolently virtuous. We hold this to be evidence that “the road less traveled” has now been traveled by Ms. Oprah Winfrey very well and she has an entourage that extends beyond cultural boundaries and generational dissimilarities and they remain loyal and enthused by her civility and leadership.

We have never seen Ms. Winfrey stuck in neutral. For over two decades, her message has been artfully projected into our homes and our lives and though we know she was miles away, she has been indelibly close to our hearts. Slowly, the days, nights and events of her life have succeeded each other and now change, well it has come. Yet we suffer no waste nor lost because we cling to the thought of what her second horizon has in store for us.

As we conduct our “Oprah” discussions in restaurants, church, sidewalks and corridors; as we become consumed by our individual interpretations of the “Oprah Effect”, we can collectively conclude that it would not be a paradox to say that the “Oprah Effect” is a phenomenal effect. We can also collectively conclude that there is still a longing for her vivacious and candid talk show voice to interrupt the early gray of our morning or our subdued and pensive mood and place within our hearts in her usual convincing manner, a subtle message that represents a personal, yet celestial view of her passage, such as, “The comet has landed safely and kissed the earth gently; the world has watched her flight and all of the people and purposes that has made her destiny so marvelously transparent can now be connected to one glorified act of faith, we have all witnessed a piece of God’s universe on a long journey that only he could have envisioned.”

God has shown us that His work can be found in the hearts and minds of those who apply His instructions. God builds and magnifies his stories on Earth and in our great land through their deeds which are the voice of His Devotion. In order to properly bestow such an honor upon Ms. Oprah Winfrey, what must be said is that behind her alluring charm lies the soul of a person that is the rhythm of God’s symphony, she has worn His purpose so gracefully.

Her accolades are world renowned, she has been acknowledged many times over with unparallel commentary, her story continues to be told as her remarkable life continues to unfold. She is beyond the flattery of words, yet one feels compelled to describe her preponderously with articulatory preciseness, if indeed that is a sufficient description.

The world has been fortunate to have an intimate acquaintance with Ms. Winfrey. Her name, voice, and presence have become an exaltation. The joy she has shared with us is innocuous, her energy has been persuasive and her compassion is intuitively distinct and instinctively humane.

Spiritual reverence and social moxie, patriot for the transfer and distribution of economic prosperity, perhaps we know of no one more capable of carrying this torch than her.
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(Akiit.com) Preacher Creflo Dollar is speaking out in support of his “friend,” fellow mega-church pastor and “brother in the Lord,” Eddie Long.

“That preacher is still anointed to what he was called to do. He just had a wreck. Blood will take care of his issue, just as it will take care of yours,” Dollar, the pastor and founder of World Changers Church International, said in a recent sermon.

His advocacy for Long did not stop after one sentence, however. Dollar told his congregation that he could not believe that people would leave their preacher because he had a “wreck,” instead of praying for him. Dollar also expressed that he did not want any of Long’s members attending his church.

Though he travels to New York weekly to deliver a sermon, Dollar’s main church is near Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Let me have a wreck. I wanna see how many of y’all Negros still gonna be here” he told the congregants. “If you from that church and you trying to join here, I don’t want you to join here.”

Dollar admits that he, as well as anyone else, is not perfect.
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(Akiit.com) The only thing that we all know for sure, is that relevant is REAL. We talk about “keepin it real” but keeping it real is only important if it is relevant to what we’re talk in about or what we’re trying to resolve.

The Republican and Tea Party candidates for President got stage this week and proceeded to hammer away at what was wrong with the Obama administration. Interesting enough, no matter what they said was wrong with the past three years, each of them stated change as part of their platform too. It was like “My change is better than your change, even if your change has worked.”

Part of what the they were talking about was relevant, but most of it wasn’t. They never got to the root of the matter, the false wars and the weak economy started by their our party (or residuals of it). These debates are designed to confuse the public. I didn’t see a relevant player on the stage. No one where if I was walking in front of the flat screen, I’d stop and pay attention to by saying, “That’s different.” I didn’t see that kind of change on the stage.

However, over the weekend, I had epiphany while sitting at the Playboy Jazz Festival which I think makes my point. The last four years, we’ve heard a lot of talk about change. Change is not something that occurs very easily, nor does in happen very often. But when change happens, people notice. People notice when they see something that hadn’t seen before, or hear something they hadn’t quite heard before. When they see it, or hear it, they immediately embrace it and willing to try it as something to take to heart. The truth about many of the problems in our society is the ability to get to the heart of a matter in way people can embrace.

Whether its jobs, homes, schools or whatever, we can hear a lot of noise about what people could do, what people should do, what government could or should do, but at the end of the day, the conversation becomes so convoluted that the change gets lost in irrelevance. What made Obama such a political phenomenon, was that he was markedly different. Not just a black guy. White folk had seen one of them before, if not a few of them. It just wasn’t the change message. We’d heard that before. It was that he packaged himself differently and at the end of the day, his appeal was a combination of his look, his sound, and his message.

For instance, the 33rd Playboy Jazz Festival is one of the quintessential jazz festivals where what is going on in the audience is as much a part of the festival as what is going on up on stage. Hosted by Bill Cosby since 1979, the festival is a two day, two nine hour sets of entertainment that has a cult of jazz purists that are always looking for the next big sound. Whether it’s jazz fused with blues, salsa, pop or R & B, the Playboy Jazz Festival is too jazz what the Apollo is to R & B. Everybody wants to get on the Playboy Jazz ticket, but very few headliners want to close Playboy. It’s a difficult assignment.

Miles Davis would never close Playboy because of fear people wouldn’t understand one of the many genres of music he created and walk out. So, generally the headliner plays the next to the last act, considered the primetime slot and people start heading for their cars on the closing act. The closing then plays to a half full house. The legendary Fourplay rocked the house in the “primetime” slot. And people started packing. But the early exit wasn’t the case this past Saturday when the Rap/Funk/R &B fusion group, The Roots, closed the Playboy Jazz Festival. From Questlove’s first beat, The Roots had the Hollywood Bowl on its feet…and not to head for the exits. They brought a look, sound and message that these jazz goers hadn’t seen before. And when I say errbody held their spot, I mean EVERYBODY.
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(Akiit.com) On the evening news, I watched a segment about summer school. The benefit of classes year round, said the report, is that kids learn more in a shorter amount of time and thus leave the school system earlier. Summer school, it was said, keeps them out of trouble.

The down side, said a therapist interviewed, is that the amount of homework kids are assigned is stressing them out.

Nonsense, countered a well-to-do stay-at-home mom. “These kids,” she declared in a sound bite, “need something to do. Summer is for learning.”

I couldn’t agree more.

One summer of my childhood, I finally learned how to pop a wheelie on my silver stingray bicycle. I’d been working on it for weeks with little progress, and then one day it just happened.

During another magical summer, at Oklahoma City’s Washington Park, I learned how to swim.

Gazing up into the heavens on amazingly still, humid nights, I learned how to pick out the Big and Little Dipper and the one that holds a bow and arrow. I stayed out in our front yard with the neighborhood kids way past my school day bedtime. Summer is when I learned the divine order of sleeping late.

School all year. Some people take the J out of joy.

To be sure, a formal education is a gift. Indeed, many kids want to attend school all summer. They LIKE school. Nothing wrong with that.

But when I was a youngster, summer school was for kids to make up a flunking grade. Even then it wasn’t all summer and class lasted only half a day.

It’s not like my summers without school didn’t include responsibility. It was up to me and Don Minnis–we took it upon ourselves–to see that the snow cones sold at the candy shop down on Fourth Street were brain-freeze cold and that the lady didn’t skimp on the sweet Number 2 dye strawberry syrup that always left our lips red.

It fell to us two spindly kids to make certain that all little corner stores within our general neighborhood had penny candy in stock.
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