Post NBA Career Choice? Weed Dealer

From ESPN

Updated: May 13, 2009, 10:39 AM ET
Judge rejects Blount's claim
Associated Press

HAMILTON, Ohio -- Former NBA player and University of Cincinnati star Corie Blount was sentenced to one year in prison on Wednesday in a plea arrangement resulting from drug charges.
Blount, 40, had pleaded guilty in Butler County Common Pleas Court last month to two felony counts of marijuana possession after prosecutors dropped two trafficking charges.

Blount was arrested Dec. 4 after sheriff's deputies intercepted 11 pounds of marijuana sent to him at a relative's house. Investigators said they found another 18 pounds in a subsequent search of his home.

Although Judge Craig Hedric did not sentence Blount to the maximum 10 years in prison, he rejected Blount's claim that the marijuana was intended for personal use and to share with friends.

"Cheech and Chong would have had a hard time smoking that much," Hedric told Blount.

Hedric fined Blount $10,000 and ordered him to surrender two vehicles and $34,000 in cash seized in the bust.

Blount was a first-round draft pick by the Chicago Bulls in 1993. In an 11-year NBA career, he also played for the Los Angeles Lakers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors.

He played 11 years in the NBA, and this is what he does? He couldn't find ANYTHING else to do ?

The Truth About Torture

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Flip-Flop on the Torture Photos

Mr. President, this is a wrong move.

This goes against transparency in government.

Folks need to SEE what has been done in the name of America.

President Obama on Sri Lanka and Detainee Photos from White House on Vimeo.

President Obama's Commencement Address at ASU

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This Just Broke My Heart

Javon R. Jackson, 23, was shot and killed,
less than a day after graduating from the University at Buffalo



I try and make sense of things. Some things, though, just make me so angry. I'm tired as hell of Black folks who are trying to make something positive happen in the world being snuffed out by the criminal element that would be better 6 feet under. The wrong folks are winding up at the cemetary. There's a Black talk show host that calls these folks 'Urban Terrorists'. I believe I see his point.

Hat tip: Bossip

From the NYDailyNews:

For Bronx mom of Buffalo graduate, son's death turns joy to horror
BY Stephanie Gaskell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, May 11th 2009, 4:00 AM
A day after proudly watching her son graduate from the University of Buffalo, a Bronx mom is now making plans to bury the brainy future engineer.

Javon Jackson, 23, was shot and killed just after 3 a.m. Sunday outside a bar in Buffalo as he celebrated his graduation.

Cops believe the gunman and three other men walked up behind Jackson and fired at least twice at the newly minted grad.

"This was supposed to be my Mother's Day gift," grieving mom Theresa Williams, told reporters in Buffalo. "I was so proud of him."

Williams and Jackson's father, who flew in from Chicago, both attended their son's graduation and were still upstate when they learned of the terrible news.

Even hardboiled cops were jarred by the parents' tragedy.

"His father and mother were so proud to have their son graduate from college," Chief of Detectives Dennis Richards said. "Now, they are distraught beyond words."

Jackson grew up in the Pelham Parkway Houses and graduated from Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics. Friends flooded an online memorial site with stories about his quick wit and big smile.

Childhood friend Alexis Dorsett said Jackson was always more interested in his studies than fighting.

"He's a good kid. Humorous, focused on school," Dorsett said. "He's a great kid. It's hard."

Williams said she last saw her son alive when he went out to see some friends.

"I never thought it would be the last time," she said, fighting back tears.

Jackson was crossing Main St., a stretch of road lined with bars full of students celebrating graduation, when he was gunned down.

Police believe they may have caught the shooting on a surveillance camera.

The Subprime Crisis- How it hit the Black Community: An Update

From The Root.com:

More Proof Blacks Are Losing the Most Homes
By Kai Wright
Posted: May 13, 2009 at 12:31 PM

We’ve known the foreclosure crisis is hitting blacks and Latinos hardest for a while, but the Pew Hispanic Center further substantiates the point in a report released this week. The report summarizes a bunch of new housing data, but here’s the most important stat: Blacks lost more homes between 2004 and 2007 than any other racial group. According to a February Federal Reserve update, which Pew summarizes, black home ownership rates dropped by nearly three percentage points, to 47.5 percent.

This is an important stat for a bunch of reasons.

First, mortgage industry defenders have repeatedly asserted that the wave of subprime and other exotic loans that flowed over black neighborhoods did plenty of good, too. It drove up the black home ownership rate to an historic high of nearly 50 percent (alongside a rapid increase in home ownership across the racial spectrum). As we now see, however, that gain was illusory. It was based upon predatory, unsustainable loans. Worse, as I’ve reported, the massive strip mining of equity from longtime black homeowners means many, many families will come out of this much worse off than they started.

Second, home ownership is the most crucial element of middle-class wealth in America—and the black/white gap remains astounding. Overall, 69 percent of Americans were homeowners at the end of 2007, and 75 percent of white Americans. But fewer than half of blacks and just 53 percent of Latinos owned homes. Subprime brokers preyed upon this disparity—which was created through generations of publicly financed discrimination in the lending market—and gave everyone the impression that housing equality was on its way. Well, it wasn’t. Ultimately, the public sector will have to take meaningful action to erase the home ownership gap it helped create, or it won’t be long before another scam comes along to prey upon black and brown folks again.

I’ll dig into all of this in more depth in an upcoming essay in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT.

—KAI WRIGHT

The consquences to the Black Community are just beginning to be felt from this mortgage scam. Losing the homes is only step one. And the truth is, a good portion of those with subprime loans were qualified for regular loans, but couldn't get them. And, folks wonder why people like me get mad as hell when I look at these mofos in the banks, and their flunkies in the Senate and THE WHITE HOUSE, when they put up a middle finger to Main Street asking for some assistance?

Senate Rejects Limit on Credit-Card Interest Rates

Thanks for spirit and whiterosebuddy for the hat tips.

Senator Dick Durbin told us:

The Banks Own The Senate.

From The New York Times

May 13, 2009, 5:49 pm
Senate Rejects Limit on Credit-Card Interest Rates
By Carl Hulse

Despite complaints that banks and credit card companies are gouging customers by charging outrageous interest rates, the Senate on Wednesday easily turned back an effort to cap interest rates at 15 percent.

The effort by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, drew only 33 votes and needed 60, with a bipartisan group of 60 senators opposing it as the Senate pushed its credit card overhaul toward the finish line. Some Democrats and consumer groups have said that an interest cap is needed to put real teeth into an otherwise solid bill.

Other backers of the measure calculated that an interest rate ceiling would doom the popular legislation. The banking industry, which had some heavy-weight representatives monitoring the vote off of the Senate floor, warned that an interest rate limit could cause a sour reaction in the financial markets.

But Mr. Sanders said the card companies and banks were engaged in conduct that could get others hauled into court. He said one-third of all credit card holders are paying interest above 20 percent and as high as 41 percent.

“When banks are charging 30 percent interest rates, they are not making credit available,” said Mr. Sanders, who noted credit unions are limited to 15 percent. “They are engaged in loan-sharking.”

After the effort failed, Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the Democratic chairman of the banking committee, proposed that the Federal Reserve be asked to provide an analysis of how Congress could rein in interest rates.

Senators said they hoped to finish up the credit card bill as early as Thursday, coinciding with a town hall meeting by President Obama on credit card issues in New Mexico.

Read more »

Lost Potential

Over at The Loop, I've got a column up on the lost potential of so many young black males in prison. Check it out.

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