Sometimes I hate to admit that I once voted for Kwame Kilpatrick. But why wouldn’t I? Young, charismatic, intelligent, and driven -- he possessed all of the qualities that I believe I wanted in a mayor of a city on the rebound. Not only did I vote for him, I convinced others that I knew to do the same. I ignored their comments of “he’s too young”, “he doesn’t have enough experience” or “there’s something funny about a career politician.” Again, I didn’t care. I felt that the enthusiasm and his determination for change would be enough.

Boy was I wrong. In the past few years, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has gone from Democratic darling, surely on his way to congress (by way of his mother’s old seat), to a current felon recently indicted by the Feds. But the most criminal of his behavior was his ability to squander an awesome opportunity.

Will Hispanic backlash against Arizona’s anti-immigration law outshadow the Senate's failure of passing the job bill in favor of Democrats in November election?

It appears that there will be an interesting reversal of political luck for the Democratic Party regarding the upcoming November election. The traditional wisidom or earlier prediction was, the political party that is associated with President (in this case the Democratic Party) usually loses in the mid-term elections. Despite the progresses in health care and financial sector reforms, still bad US economy and job situations, unexpected BP oil spill and some criticism on President’s seemingly not-so-fast-reaction to the spill, and recent failure in the passage of Democratic Job Bill in the Senate floor that is designed to extend unemployment benefits are going to contribute to the not-so-rosy election scenario.

Recent news, however, reveals that the implementation of Arizona anti-Immigration Law, which was reportedly designed as a Republican's short-term political pleaser to the tea-party and anti-immigrant supporters, has infuriated Hispanic voters, causing Hispanic Backlash that is ripping Hispanic votes of Republican politicians such as Texas Governor Rick Perry and Colorado Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton in favor of their Democrat opponents.

From June 16 to June 19, I went to Portland to attend a conference of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. In the span of a few days, I met cartoonists from around the country and enjoyed many conversations about the state of the industry and about the craft of cartooning. I was initially nervous about meeting some of my cartoonist heroes, but once I started talking to them, they always turned out to be nice and engaging people.

The very first cartoonists that I met were Jesse Springer and Monte Wolverton. Jesse had attended his first convention last year and still considered himself a relative newby, even though he had been doing political cartoons for over 15 years. He does political cartoons for local papers in Eugene, Oregon, and during the course of the convention we got around to talking about the materials we used to create our cartoons.

Do I Have What it Takes to be a Nerd Girl? Probably not.

I am a Nerd and I a Girl. I love Science and believe in STEM outreach to under-served audiences by Many Means Necessary. I came across a blog post by USA Science & Engineering Festival that asked the question: “Do You Have What it Takes to be a Nerd Girl?”, and my initial reaction was I sure do. Nerd Girls is an engineering outreach program for girls and young women. Pretty sweet, huh? There’s a television show upcoming and this is the casting call for video auditions.

On Monday, June 14, a preliminary probe by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) of ACORN has found no evidence the association or related organizations mishandled the $40 million in federal money they received in recent years.

A review of grants by nine federal agencies found no problems with ACORN's grants. In my new book, Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America's Most Controversial Antipoverty Community Organizing Group, I document how ACORN, the largest most successful national anti poverty organization in America, was forced to close its door.

The GAO, an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, is often called the "congressional watchdog." It investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars.

Van Jones, who spent a short time as President Obama’s green jobs advisor, and who is currently serving as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and as a policy advisor at Green for All took a few minutes to answer some questions before he spoke to about 500 progressive activists in Lansing on Saturday.

During the interview, Jones was asked a broad range of questions. Jones still has contacts in Michigan, including Andy Levin and Governor Granholm. He said that in Washington D.C. Governor Granholm is seen as the gold standard of an industrial belt governor that really sees this clean energy opportunity and is going for it.

When asked about Governor Bobby Jindal’s recent press conference regarding the BP oil spill and the loss of jobs being caused by President Obama’s temporary moratorium on new deep water drilling, Jones responded,

“I think we have obviously a lot to grieve at this point. We have eleven workers who lost their lives because a foreign corporation came to the United States, corrupted our government, slagged up our coastline, killed eleven workers through criminal negligence and now destroyed a precious ecosystem and economy, a big chunk of America’s beauty has been destroyed because of this one company."

A list I found of various Christian and other groups involved in the issue of immigration and immigration reform.

• National Council of La Raza
• The Episcopal Diocese of Arizona
• Frontera de Cristo
• The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
• The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference

Why is everything happening all together? The almost-collapse of car industry, the meltdown of housing and financial markets, health care and financial reforms, BP oil spill and the aftermath, all of which has directed public attention to the appalling role of lobbyists and interest politics on US politics and economy. Are these some kind of prophecy telling the public that this is the time for America to wake up and do a comprehensive overhaul of her whole structure if she wants to safely navigate and survive in modern times? “

Recently, a renowned actor, Robert Redford, produced a video, “The Fix: Robert Redford Reflects on the Gulf Oil Disaster,” and stated on Big Oil in his Huff Post blog post as below.

“As I try to convey in my new video, 'The Fix,' I am appalled by what this spill is doing to Gulf fishermen, families, communities and wildlife. But I am also disgusted by what it reveals about the oil industry’s role in American political life … With their deep pockets, oil companies have purchased loose safety regulations, slack oversight and support from key lawmakers. Last year alone, the industry spent a $168 million on lobbying — $16 million of which came from BP. The blowout on the Deepwater Horizon is a symptom of this undue influence.”

Lately most of what I have read about Facebook is complaints about security and privacy. It’s legitimate to worry about how a company might appropriate all the personal information exchanged by those who use the site. Whether all of that data is being adequately protected from stalkers and scam artists is important too.

But in the last forty eight hours I have also seen how Facebook users have turned a social network site into a support network for a beloved teacher. Today there are scores of former students reaching out to let Virginia Witte know that her battle with cancer is our battle too.

We Americans just love our evil. We not only demonize our criminals, but we relish doing it. It permeates our society. Our literature and movies are rich in evil protagonists, and we buy innumerable guns to protect ourselves against bogeymen of all sorts — even as we have a voyeuristic fascination with them.

The concept of evil permeates also our institutions. We codify it in our criminal judicial system, and we have the highest incarceration rate of any Western industrial society to show for it. Not satisfied only to elect politicians who champion the death penalty for violent offenders, we use a punitive approach even for nonviolent crimes as well — all under the banner of justice.

But just what exactly is evil?

Benjamin Franklin has always been my favorite Founding Father. Of all the Founding Fathers, he seemed the most witty, the most personable. When I watched the movie 1776, I really enjoyed the jolly Benjamin Franklin persona that I watched on the screen. I admire Franklin's accomplishments as a scientist, a politician, and a diplomat to France and England. When I read the book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph Ellis, I didn't realize the extant of Benjamin Franklin's involvement in the fight to abolish slavery in the early nation. Ellis' book details Benjamin Franklin's attempt in 1790 to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery. This last crusade of Benjamin Franklin before he died was the culmination of a lifetime where he evolved in his views on slavery and the equality of African Americans.

It happened again a few days ago. A long-time friend who should know better sent me another one of those racist anti-Hispanic e-mails, one in a long line of many I’ve received since Arizona passed its “Show us your documentation” law. This isn’t the first racist e-mail I’ve received nor will it be the last, I’m sure.

Racist e-mails have become the norm in the last few years. After 9/11, I received a torrent of hateful e-mails against Middle Easterners in general and Muslims in particular. Finally, after I received such an e-mail, a particularly hateful one, from a friend, I responded. I told her to take me off her hate mail list. I also told her that one of my former officemates at the community college where I taught is a Middle Eastern Muslim, as is the cardiologist I see. Both men are fine people who came to America because they knew they could be successful here. Many Middle Eastern students took my English comp classes, and I assume most of them were Muslims, even though I never asked. The worst crime they ever committed was to try to bribe me with meals so they would get an A in the class. Of course, the bribes never worked.

According to the Market Wire, "The Honourable Beverley J. Oda, Minister of International Cooperation, today announced support for women's and girls' rights through funding to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). "

"Protecting the rights of women and girls is an essential part of Canada's international development approach," Minister Oda said. "Without their basic rights, women and girls can never realize their full potential and fully participate in society."

With the recent support of Canada for the women's rights and girls, maybe other countries will follow suit and realize the importance of not only support, but encouragement for those groups.

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In mid-May the United States Environmental Protection Agency ordered BP to stop using the toxic dispersant, Corexit 9500, in U.S. territorial waters. BP responded with a statement about why it would continue to use Corexit, despite the EPA order. By May 23 the EPA rejected the reasons BP gave in its statement, and reiterated its order. BP ignored this judgment and has continued spraying Corexit in the Gulf ever since.

So why aren't BP officials being herded into U.S. jails or POW facilities for this willful violation of U.S. sovereignty? Does the Gulf of Mexico belong to BP? I'll tell you what I understand about this below – which isn't much. Help me understand the rest.