Scranton Native Brenda Williams Slain By Police Officers
Four city police officers have been placed on paid leave pending an investigation into the fatal shooting of Air Force veteran, Brenda Williams, 52 at her North Scranton home.
She was pronounced dead at Community Medical Center upon arrival after she was shot multiple times by officers inside her second-floor apartment at 1501 N. Lincoln Avenue.
Additional details about the incident, which apparently unfolded over the course of more than an hour, were difficult to come by Friday as investigators clamped a lid on the release of information.
Keep updated on this story by reading Melaniannews Weblog.
Minneapolis Urban League – “You’re a Community Organizer?”
Sometimes, you don’t need any written words…enjoy IBNN YouTube Channel Video!
Banana Republic: Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, Minneapolis Urban League block Information to the community with secret Pipeline meetings
“With the arrest of Terry Drakes on Friday, it’s clear that the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights(MDCR) Investigative Unit and the Compliance Unit is using the Minneapolis Urban League’s (MUL) Pipeline meetings to present false propaganda to the community while neglecting to reporting on what is actually happening to people in the system. Mr. Terry Drakes has repeatedly become a casualty of the MDCR for their lack of concern for the “least of thee.”
“Make them do what they have written on paper…Dr. King”
Again, IBNN uncovers another layer to the deception of the Dream that the Minneapolis Urban League continues to exploit the sacred trust of social justice by cannibalizing the Minneapolis Urban League’s Pipeline, or Minnesota Pipeline. The Pipeline’s original intent was to be a collaboration of forums and discussions in a “community” setting, allowing input from members of the community to voice their views and opinions in a safe and respectful forum, to help bridge decades of distrust and misinformation to encourage transparency in governmental and civic affairs.
The Minnesota Pipeline has addressed issues like “Making Minnesota’s Children a Political Priority in the 2008 Election” to reverse these inequities and change the lives of children of color in Minnesota and other noteworthy causes in an election year that would flow with the “pipeline” of the current Democratic infrastructure in Minneapolis.
“If the Minneapolis Urban League’s Pipeline, would ask the real questions and work as advocates rather than social facilitators, incidents of injustice would be key and top-of-mind for the community, versus a social meet and greet.” Read more
Who killed 19 year old LaVena Johnson the first women to die and the first Black woman Killed while serving the US
“We will not stop until we get answers!”
In May of 2005 18 year old LaVena Johnson was assigned to the 129 Corp Support Battalion and deployed to service a tour in Balad Iraq.
On July 19, 2005, eight weeks after being deployed to Iraq, she was mysteriously murdered at the age of 19 – eight days shy of her twentieth birthday. She was the first woman soldier and the first Black woman soldier to die while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. To this date, the cause of her death is still being questioned. News and the questions surrounding the cause of her death reached The United Kingdom in June of 2006. In lieu of it being over two and a half years since her death, her story is still heartfelt by Missourians and other Americans all over this country, and is still news worthy and is now just reaching the national level. Read more
Big Brother Medicine – FBI search for a Minnesota Mother and Son
I wrote another article for Honeycutt Speaks. I would love for all of you to read it below.
By Deborah Ann Travis Honeycutt, MD – www.honeycuttspeaks.com
The current news of the FBI and police searching for a Minnesota mom, Colleen Hauser, and her thirteen year old son, Daniel, who are refusing chemotherapy, gives a lot of fodder for consideration. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is still the USA. We still have the right to choose which medical therapies we desire and which we choose to refuse. Other people, some of whom have had a chemotherapy cure of their case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma have urged the mother to bring her son back home for chemotherapy. I am happy for the people who made their decision for chemotherapy and got a resultant cure. But, this situation brings to mind the statement of President Obama that he would work with both parties of Congress in all of his endeavors. As it plays out, our President meant that he would work with his own party and with only those who would readily agree with him from the other party. Now the courts and the media portray this mother and son as criminals because they do not agree with them about how Daniel should approach care of cancer.
As a family medicine physician, I have a healthy respect for oncologists, physicians who care for those with cancers. They have not only great ability to personalize the care of each one of their patients to get the very best result for them, but they also have great compassion for their often very ill patients. But even they have heard of cancer cures that were affected with therapies outside the realm of our modern western medicine. Read more
What does the Stairstep Foundation do? (Response from Donald Allen as printed in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (5/20/09)
Editors note: On Monday, May 11, 2009, Insight News published an article titled, “When heros are Limbaugh, Palin Truth, values, Community interests get jettisoned,” this artilce was also published in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. Today, in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, Don Allen responds to Alfred Babington-Johnson’s commentary.
This is my response as printed in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
What does the Stairstep Foundation do?
How does it benefit the economic and social well-being of our community?
By Donald W.R. Allen, II is editor in chief of Independent Business News Network, www.ibnn.org. He welcomes reader responses to donny@donny-allen.com.
In July of 2008, the Independent Business News Network (IBNN) was created to shed light on politics, business, money, community and education in the Twin Cities area. Our focus has been pinpointed on North Minneapolis.
IBNN has taken a hard-line look into disparities that continue to be addressed with funding from state, federal and city coffers to include local corporations and foundations with no evidence of visible and tangible results in the community.
Alfred Babington-Johnson of the Stairstep Foundation authored a commentary in last week’s Spokesman-Recorder [“Spurious attacks wrongly discredit Urban League CEO search”]. It highlighted that there was something vile in the community that forced him to disclose the role his organization and his wife’s company played in the Minneapolis Urban League’s search and selection of their new president and CEO. Read more
In the name of “God” and “Poor People.” Trying to make the Minneapolis Urban League Relevant
The mission of the Urban League movement is “to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.”
How is it plausible that a board member can without question, broadcast from the Minneapolis Urban League for free; and without being charged, and can receive in-kind donation from the Minneapolis Urban League, without it being documented?”
I have requested board minutes and a copy of the signed Conflict of Interest statement which Mr. McFarlane has told me he has signed. (Y-T-D no request for information have been provided by the Minneapolis Urban League or its board.)
Can we afford to invest our dollars and trust into individuals that misuse their funding for their own personal gain, and cry wolf when held accountable? The historic Black press has been exploited and been replaced with Black Nationalist and nepotism laced propaganda.
In this case, propaganda is used with false information and material that purports to be from an authoritative source (Alfred Babington-Johnson, Al McFarlane) on one side of a conflict, but actually is a pre-planned form of engagement to counter factual information from an opposing source that no matter how “twisted or spun” provides factual data about the state of a matter. This is a smoke-screen attempt to not answer questions that could be of importance to the community. It is common knowledge that the Black Church and the Historic Black press that have been bastardized and tainted by their tenure; I doubt we can compare the Ida B. Wells and her anti lynching crusade to this. This is hardly a crisis, more like a personal problem.
In the matters I speak of, full disclosure would further damage this group’s chance of making the Minneapolis Urban League and the Stairstep Foundation relevant.
The miss-information supplied by Insight and others in last week’s issue gives the community another example of who the players are that extol the perpetual disadvantage of their ethnicity, yet is quite well off stemming from their efforts. Seems like a pimp to me.
Furthermore, if Donald Trump, Don King and Reginald Lewis are my hero’s what happens when after reading the many books authored by Trump, King and Lewis leads me at ask questions about process and why we’re in this situation?
Last Tuesday, I listened carefully to KFAI-FM’s broadcast of “Conversations with Al McFarlane.” Reverend Jerry McAfee quoted scripture from the Bible. Rev. McAfee, quoted Matthew 5, verse 11: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12) Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
One thing missing from the fine reverend’s mini-sermon was in verse 11 he did not explain to the radio audience the information he referenced was not because Mr. Babington-Johnson and Mr. McFarlane follow God, but because of some really questionable business practices that continue to go questioned and unanswered. Hence, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
How is any of this God’s work? This demagoguery is just played. I guess their word is gospel, and now I have sinned because I dared to question what their non-profit funding dollars are being spent. Again we have another example of pastors using Bible verses out of context to what the message is really about. Unless, Mr. McFarlane, Mr. Babington-Johnson or Reverend McAfee has become somebody or something that is treated like a deity, clearly this verse does not apply.
I’m okay with loving God. I just don’t dig poverty pimps. I thought we are to pray for the most vulnerable, not those at risk losing their funding. Again, proven using all outlets at their disposal to maintain power and keep exchanging money in the temple.
DFL, Esq.
The party of grassroots politics is actually the party of denial and prairie mentality.
Taking his step-father’s name Brian Melendez of Florida and Donna Cassutt from segregated suburban Detroit shows that no one who has been born and raised in Minnesota is running the DFL. Even on Facebook, Keith Ellison uses Detroit as his hometown and he has been here since his days as a young Black Radical law student where Brian Melendez, Matt Entenza all went to the Mondale School of Law. RT Rybak was a reporter for the Star Tribune who covered Keith X or Muhammad, Esq. when he defended Sharif Willis who allegedly killed Officer Jerry Haff at the Pizza Shack on Lake Street. Read more
Sacred Trust..Exploiting the Dream
We have had too many examples in history to not think that we too are immune to totalitarianism. If a leader feels too grand to be questioned, something is rotten in Denmark. The quality of life for African Americans in Minneapolis has declined under their watch, they are responsible. It is a harsh truth, but being a leader also carries the responsibility of ownership of bad choices, or benign neglect. It was better before they positioned themselves as leaders. No one wants to talk about that.
The irony is that poverty pimps use fear as a way to maintain power doing little to change the lives of the most vulnerable the very people they claim to protect. It is their funding, their mortgage and car payment that they are worried about.
Just because those particular African American individuals do not get the funding, does not mean that African Americans will not be served. Crying wolf and white guilt are completely useless tools to end injustice and poverty. They are counter intuitive, and actually do more to alienate than heal the wounds of racism.
If we are expected to have a healthy democracy we are expected to have a free exchange of ideas and have transparency for donations that is contributed in good faith to help the group specified in the grant, not just to keep the funding going. That is inherently evil. I am sure there are many other people and projects that could us the funding in a more productive and moral manner. I believe that their worth is measured by the harvest.
Airing out of dirty laundry is a painful process, but the only way we can change is to acknowledge what is not working and not do it again. I am sure there are many quiet leaders and organizations that have proven programs that exist on a hope and a prayer get the money. The leaders that are too shy or busy to be holding their hands out are usually the ones we most want to support.
The same old tired leadership has been in power my entire life we have given them a chance. The sacred trust of who tends to the tradition of social justice has been so frayed, that we must examine as a community without fear. The current players have had ample time to produce results are not making the grade it is time to question authority. Could you have the same track record and keep your job?
“The Woman doth protest too much!” Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 222–230 in this case “The man (Alfred Babington-Johnson) doth protest too much”
“If you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, the one you hit will yelp the most.”
Question #1: Have you (Babington-Johnson or Mr. McFarlane) ever been members of the Communist Party?
Question #2: Have you ever been or are you now leaders in the Black community?
I usually don’t pay much attention to the Insight News, today was different, well not really.
On the front page of the Insight News a commentary by the Stairstep Foundation’s Alfred Babington-Johnson appeared.
The funny thing is, they have my hero’s mixed up.
Mr. Johnson, your track record is less than pristine, what you say so loud cannot be heard. You and Mr. McFarlane are foul balls. In other words, a rim shot!
Again, north Minneapolis has suffered at the hand of poverty pimps that have lost the mission as it pertains to service to the underserved and if Malcolm X and Dr. King were alive, you two “crabs in a barrel” would have not be able to operate in the community without supplying answers to your actions. Read more
IBNNNEW- North Minneapolis: NAACP President “Uncovers” two of the North side seven and an estimated $4 million dollars Donald Allen
- Apology to the North Minneapolis Community. We don’t have leaders, we have self-appointed spokespersons Donald Allen
- The Death of North Minneapolis… Donald Allen
- IBNN Exclusive Report: Youth with weapon attempts to enter funeral of Alisha “Lele” Neely (Captured on Film) Donald Allen
- WCCO 4 (CBS) Television fails in journalistic integrity with “edited and spliced” tape of the Minneapolis Police Beating of Ira Stafford…rating F- Donald Allen
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