Kirk Wright Suicide: Former NFL Financial Advisor Commits Suicide In Jail

In a very sad end to a story about a person that had so much initial promise, Kirk Wright, the man convicted of up to 710 years in jail for mail and securities fraud and who had formed frauduent reports to clients to cause them to think they were making money from his investment portfolio, when he was losing money, killed himself in jail in Union City, North Carolina. Some of his clients were NFL players.

The result was that he fled from capture and when found was sentenced to prison for a term longer -- much longer than his life. He was -- to my knoweldge -- given no chance to clean up his act with the people he harmed or society in general.

And now, this young man is dead at 37.

It's sad. Sad to know that a professional Black young man with vast connections could wind up in the position he found himself in. And he probably saw himself as having failed after trying to reach above where society seems to say where he should be, only to find himself in a mostly-Black prison system, and with no way out.

So Kirk created one. God bless his soul.

A Democratic Landslide In November?

As the contentious and historic battle between Democratic heavyweights Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton arrives at an abrupt finish, the limelight and attention can now be focused on both sides ability to emerge victorious in states usually reserved for the opposing party.

Can Obama court elderly Jewish voters in Florida and blue collar workers in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania? Can McCain convince the residents of Michigan that he is correct on the economy and will the established status quo citizens of the sunshine state play it safe and cast their vote for what many perceive as a Bush third term? Moreover, these are the hotly debated questions in these pivotal swing states that's going to differentiate which candidate is going to win in November.

While it would seem evident that in one of the most horrific and appalling years in United States history, with a misguided and debilitating war, an economy in peril, 47 million uninsured Americans, zero respect from allies and adversaries, an administration allergic to effective leadership and immune to responsibility, an absent minded energy and foreign policy, an environment on the brink of disaster and an educational system that's stealing the future of millions of hard working children and teenagers, that Democrats would cruise to victory this fall and recapture the White House.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. Barack Obama is not going to easily slither his way to the mountain top without a highly competitive and combative contest from John McCain. Republicans might not know how to run the country, but they know very well how to run a campaign.

SF Supervisor Chris Daly Called For Riot in San Francisco During Olympic Torch Protest

Just as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was worrying about the very possible future of violent protests along the route of the Olympic Torch Relay on the evening before the day of the event, April 9th, here in my video below, is Supervisor Chris Daly calling for protesters to "shut down" San Francisco, stating that it's part of the city's history to have such things happen.

Appearing before a crowd of about 8,000 people and as part of a well-done Olympic Torch Protest event at United Nations Plaza and featuring actor Richard Gere, Supervisor Daly took the stage with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and after saying "Free Tibet" and waiting for the crowd to respond, he said "to do any less than take the streets of San Francisco would be un-san franciscan.

Daly continued by stating that in "1934, labor shut San Francisco down. In 2003, 300 people were on the streets of San Francisco saying 'no' to an illegal war and occupation of a country where the people were not inviting us in.." and continued as Supervisor Mirkarimi clapped in celebration of his speech, and the crowd got more excited.

Then Supervisor Mirkarimi took the mic and said that Supervisor Daly was called the "Daly-Lama" around City Hall.

Ok.

Still, one wonders what may have happened if Mayor Newsom had not secretly altered the Olympic torch path the next day. Not only would there have been violent protests and perhaps deaths, but Chris Daly would have hit his objective of protests being held, which would have cost the City itself a lot of money in police hours and the almost certain flood of lawsuits that would have been filed.

Here's the video:



Video also on Dailymotion and AOL , and MySpace.

Bush - McCain Fundraiser Reduced In Size: Poor Ticket Sales

According to Talking Points Memo, a planned fundraiser featuring President Bush II and presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain was scaled back due to poor ticket sales.

That should send a message of the election future of the Republicans. Three special election losses, and now this. November looks like a Democratic Landslide, if we can keep Senator Clinton in check.

Obama To Pick Up 40 Clinton Delegates

According to blogger Al Giordano (any relation to Matt from the Indy Colts and Cal Bears?), Senator Barack Obama will pick up 40 new delegates who had backed Senator Clinton. This move was not a reaction to the Clinton RFK issue, but came just before it. Let's see who else moves after it.

Hillary Is 44 Website Blind To Clinton RFK Assassination GaffeGate Scandal

Yes, I'm calling it GaffeGate because you've got to wonder who walked into Senator Clinton's head and stole her brain! That's the only way she could have even let the now famous words escape her mouth:

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."

But while the whole world is scratching its collective head over Senator Clinton's open connection of Bobby Kennedy's assassination to present day, and by reference Senator Obama and when she would get out of the presidential race, the pro-Clinton website "Hillary Is 44" acts like the matter never happened.

Wild.

Keith Olbermann's Daily Kos Blog On Clinton RFK Comments

Well, the media hits just keep coming regarding Senator Hillary Clinton's Clinton RFK Assassination comments. Here's what Keith Olbermann of NBC's "Countdown" and the former ESPN anchor wrote over at the DailyKos just a few moments ago:

As alluded to elsewhere Senator Clinton's comments require a Special Comment tonight.

I need to be brief, but there's a preview below. We can sometimes have our most innocent remarks misinterpreted into the most violent of inferences - I know this firsthand. And we are still responsible for the words, no matter the intent.

The use of the word "assassination" is not open to misinterpretation. It has no place, not with our country's history.

Those words, Senator?
You actually invoked the nightmare of political assassination.
You actually invoked the spectre of an inspirational leader, at the seeming moment of triumph, for himself and a battered nation yearning to breathe free, silenced forever.
You actually used the word "assassination" in the middle of a campaign with a loud undertone of racial hatred -- and gender hatred -- and political hatred.
You actually used the word "assassination" in a time when there is a fear, unspoken but vivid and terrible, that our again-troubled land and fractured political landscape might target a black man running for president.
Or a white man.
Or a white woman!
You actually used those words, in this America, Senator while running against an African-American against whom the death threats started the moment he declared his campaign?
You actually used those words, in this America, Senator, while running to break your "greatest glass ceiling" and claiming there are people who would do anything to stop you?
You!
Senator -- never mind the implications of using the word "assassination" in any connection to Senator Obama...
What about you?
You cannot say this!

Here's Keith's television presentation on his show "Countdown: With Keith Olbermann."

Clinton RFK Comments: Samantha Power Must Be Smiling

Clinton RFK Assassination: Samantha Power Must Be Smiling

In the wake of Senator Clinton's amazingly shocking and hurtful statements regarding her reasons why she should remain in the campaign we have to go back and reconsider the supposed-to-be off-the-record comment by now former Obama for America Foreign Policy advisor Samantha Power, who famously said that Senator Clinton "Was a Monster."

Even though she apologized for that statement, you've got to believe Professor Power's smiling whereever she is in the World.

Hillary Clinton "RFK June Assasination" Comment Raises Obama Safety Concerns

Hillary Clinton "RFK June Assasination" Comment Raises Obama Safety Concerns

UPDATEL: Clinton Blames Obama for her gaffe

It was as shocking as it was sudden. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, then top campaigner against and now only the challenger to Senator Barack Obama's run for the Democratic Nominee for President of The United States, has made what in my estimation is the largest mistake of her candidacy, and yes, even larger than her comments on Martin Luther King where she said "It takes a President.."

Today, Senator Clinton really stuck her foot in it, calling up the image of Bobby Kennedy's Assasination in 1968 as a historic reason for her to stay in the current Presidential Election race. This Talking Points Memo video captures Hillary Clinton at the Argus Leader editorial board interview, May 23, 2008 which is today and where she made the comments:



This has caused an outrage all over. I first listened to this, and turned around and looked at my Mom, who's visiting, and she said "She's gone crazy." Over at the Huffington Post, the comments below Sam Stein's article are not supportive. I took it as this: she's waiting for someone to kill Barack Obama.

Senator Obama has been compared not just with JFK, but with RFK, as my video here shows.

Now, I'm hearing Clinton supporter, former aide, and CNN Contributor Paul Begala trying like heck to put lipstick on this pig, and it's not working at all.

This has spread like wildfire. Clinton's comments are on five videos on YouTube in just the last hour. AmericaBlog.com is calling for Superdelegates to make their decision now, based on the Clinton error, and the fact that Obama's only 56 delegates from the magic mark.

It's caused a firestorm over at DailyKos, and the -- as of this writing -- 1,400 + comments are overwhelmingly negative. Ann Kornblut over at Saddlebrook Democrats linked her statement with Governor Mike Huckabee's words that someone was aiming a gun at Barack Obama, saying "shame on you" to both.

She's right.

I wonder what's in her head to come up with that comment? I wonder if she's daring to think that someone will try to kill Senator Obama by June? There's something dark back there in the deep recesses of her mind and it's not good in my view.

It was a terrible statement for which she apologized:



But for me, it's not enough. Michelle Benard on MSNBC's right: Clinton's comments have cemented her terrible relationship with the African American community, perhaps for good.

Stay tuned.

Senator John McCain's Double (Tripple?) Pastor Problems

While the mainstream media was hammering Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama over his relationship with his now-former Pastor Jeremiah Wright, many bloggers were pointing to presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee John McCain's problem with not one, but two men of the cloth.

Now, thanks to YouTube, the controversial remarks of Pastor John Hagee, a prominent Christian minister who's endorsement McCain doggedly pursued and got, said these very ugly words according to The Huff Post's Sam Stein:

Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that.

"Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

"Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." (Listen to the audio below.)

In other words, blame God for sending Hitler to "cause" the Holocaust.

Fortunately today, McCain rejected Hagee's endorsement. Not to be embarassed, Hagee rejected McCain.

But it all didn't stop there. McCain had to kick to the curb the backing of another pastor by the name of Rod Parsley, who openly said that Islam was a religion that was inherently violent.

I wonder what other people of God McCain will have to reject before this campaign is over.

Stay tuned.

NFL Owners opt out of CBA-Upshaw Not Fazed

NFL Owners opt out of CBA-Upshaw Not Fazed
By Dr. Bill Chachkes-Football Reporters Online-Special to SBS

Early this week the NFL owners group opted out of the collective bargaining agreement extension which was signed two years ago. Simply put, we are talking about three more years of labor peace (through 2010) even though both sides claim they "want to get the talks rolling now." NFLPA Head Gene Upshaw wasn't even upset. "We knew this was coming" He said. "We just didn't think it would be so soon". I guess he thought the owners would wait until the November 8th deadline.

Something tells me the owners aren't that interested in talking right this second. They will wait until next year at the earliest to call meetings and discuss getting the players to give back some more money, stating hard financial times. While it's true that the country is headed for a recession, there is no concrete evidence of this in professional sports when contracts are getting higher all the time.Could their possible be a strike after the 2010 season, something that has not taken place since 1987(you remember the 87 strike right? Games were played with replacement players) Sadly i remember the 1987 strike. It stunk of sports politics gone bad. We should pray it just doesn't happen again.

A New Design For Zennie's Zeitgeist

"To Everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season.." A time to ..change blog designs. This is a new and evolving design that comes two years after Bloggers change to XML, and after our own -- and my own -- journey into rich media content. The increased use of video and special links gave such a weight to the original design that it was too slow to load. Finally push came to shove and here we have this new design.

Although it doesn't look like it, we are able to accomplish much of the same objectives with this cleaner look, from seeing our writer's names, to viewing the YouTube channel Zennie62, to buying tickets, to presenting our simulations. Plus, it's more in keeping with the fact that our blog network has taken on a life of its own and thus needed its own identity.

I also like the cool blue, but I'm now interested in XML, so future changes will reflect my increased knoweldge of how to code in it.

This design will evolve more, but the basic look is what you're going to see for awhile. Kudoes to Gekko and Fly for developing the look! Let me know what you think!