Ex-mayoral aide Christine Beatty will spend four months in jail after pleading guilty Monday in her text-messaging sex scandal with former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
The circus Kilpatrick created because he wanted to lie, lie, and lie some more about his mistress weighed on the city for nearly a year. Kilpatrick is also serving a four-month jail sentence as part of his plea. See Full Coverage
Now that it's all over (or so we hope) comment below and tell us what you think in this open thread.
Do you think Beatty deserves to do time for lying, or does the punishment outweigh the crime?
** FILE ** Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy addresses the media in her office in Detroit, Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. The investigation into whether Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former top aide committed perjury or other crimes during testimony in a highly publicized whistle-blowers' trial is all part of the job for the Wayne County prosecutor. And she doesn't even consider it the toughest assignment she's had since she's been in the prosecutor's office. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, file)
AP
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick addresses the media during a news conference in Detroit, Tuesday, March 18, 2008. A nearly unified City Council voiced its displeasure with Kilpatrick on Tuesday, calling on the scandal-tainted mayor to resign. A resolution, which passed on a 7-1 vote in the early afternoon, was more of a "no-confidence" vote. The council doesn't have the power to force Kilpatrick to step down. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
AP
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick addresses the media during a news conference in Detroit, Tuesday, March 18, 2008. A nearly unified City Council voiced its displeasure with Kilpatrick on Tuesday, calling on the scandal-tainted mayor to resign. A resolution, which passed on a 7-1 vote in the early afternoon, was more of a "no-confidence" vote. The council doesn't have the power to force Kilpatrick to step down. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
AP
** FILE ** Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox speaks during an interview in this April 11, 2005, file photo, in Lansing, Mich. Cox said Wednesday, March 12, 2008, that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick should resign because he's a liar and a race-baiter "on par with David Duke and George Wallace," and no longer fit for office. (AP Photo/Al Goldis, file)
AP
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick gives his State of the City address in Detroit, Tuesday, March 11, 2008. A prosecutor says she will announce in two weeks whether she will file perjury charges against the mayor and his former top aide. The case stems from a criminal probe of whether Kilpatrick lied under oath when he denied an affair with former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty that was revealed in the text messages. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
AP
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick gives his seventh State of the City address in Detroit, Michigan, March 11, 2008. Embattled Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick on Tuesday said scandals threatening to derail his second term amounted to a "hate-driven, bigoted assault" against him and vowed to stay in office and fight for sweeping investment plans for the city. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (UNITED STATES)
Reuters
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick points towards his family before the start of his seventh State of the City address in Detroit, Michigan, March 11, 2008. Embattled Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick on Tuesday said scandals threatening to derail his second term amounted to a "hate-driven, bigoted assault" against him and vowed to stay in office and fight for sweeping investment plans for the city. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (UNITED STATES)
Reuters
The parents and sister of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (L), Ayanna (C) and Bernard Kilpatrick stand before the start of Mayor Kilpatrick's State of the City address in Detroit, Michigan, March 11, 2008. Embattled Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick on Tuesday said scandals threatening to derail his second term amounted to a "hate-driven, bigoted assault" against him and vowed to stay in office and fight for sweeping investment plans for the city. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (UNITED STATES)
Reuters
DETROIT - MARCH 11: Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings says the Pledge of Alligiance before Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's State of the City address March 11, 2008 in Detroit, Michigan. Several members of the city council protested the Mayor by sitting in the audience instead of sitting on stage with the Mayor. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Protestors demonstrate outside of Orchestra Hall where Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was giving his State of the City address March 11, 2008 in Detroit, Michigan. Four members of the nine-member council declined to take their customary seats onstage with the mayor, who is in the midst of a text-messaging scandal involving charges of sexual misconduct and of perjury related to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former police officers against the city. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images/AFP == FOR NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET, TELCOS & TELEVISION USE ONLY == (Photo credit should read BILL PUGLIANO/AFP/Getty Images)
Broadcast & Cable magazine is reporting that Ion Media is talking with Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson about starting a new network aimed at the urban (read: black) viewer. Now, who knows why he wants another stab at the TV network business.
Perhaps it's because there's a market for people who like to watch black television. Perhaps it's because he fell under such criticism for what his creation turned into on his watch. Perhaps it's a combination of both. ...
Today President-Elect Barack Obama introduced his choices for his national security team, which had been under speculation by pundits since the election. Leading the pack was New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, his former adversary, who will now be Secretary of State.
Clinton, being who she is; a White House veteran, Democratic Senate stalwart, and now even foreign policy intellectual was a smart choice for the incoming Obama administration. She'll be the Quarterback on his Team of Rivals. However, Obama has also picked an interesting person, whose name is not really known outside of diplomacy circles as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Susan Rice (no relation to the current Secretary of State), is probably as smart a choice for that position as Clinton is for hers. Reason being is because in addition to being a current Brookings Institution fellow, she has already served on the National Security Council in the (Bill) Clinton administration, was a senior adviser to John Kerry's campaign for national security affairs and as assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. ...
December 2nd is UN Slavery Abolition Day and we should take notice. It is estimated that there are at least 27 million people enslaved around the world today. At 27 million, more human beings are in bondage than at any other time in history. According to the Christian Science Monitor: Slavery is not dead, it's just less recognizable.
Slaves are cheap these days. Their price is the lowest it's been in about 4,000 years. And right now the world has a glut of human slaves - 27 million by conservative estimates and more than at any time in human history.
Although now banned in every country, slavery has boomed in the past 50 years as the global population has exploded. A billion people scrape by on $1 a day. That extreme poverty combined with local government corruption and a global economy that leaps national boundaries has produced a surge in the number of slaves - even though in the developed world, that word conjures up the 19th century rather than the evening news. ...
Over the holiday weekend a 34 year-old man died in a senseless tragedy. Jdimytai Damour was trampled to the point of cardiac arrest in the name of a cheap flat-screen TV or a discounted Wii video game system.
Wal-Mart incited this tragedy all on it's own by publicizing greedy deals and hyping the day after Thanksgiving as a "doorbuster" event.
That is a fact.
You can't blame the stampede of customers any more than you can blame Damour for being there, making minimum wage or better as a security guard on black Friday.
We should start to remember this so-called "black Friday" for the dark and sad exhibit it has become. Why not call it what it usually turns out to be at big box retailers across the country: a chaotic and dangerous stampede of people that can lead to injury or death Friday.
The store closed, then opened less than 3 hours after the incident. Meanwhile, you probably heard about similar incidents, stampedes and even shootings at other store opening events across the country.
Police are looking over the store security tapes to see if they can identify the person who knocked down Damour. But what about the hundreds of people behind that suspect, pushing and walking over him? Are they not guilty?
Police wanting a suspect should look no further than the big blue sign on the front of the building where the mayhem took place.
Damour does not have to die in vein. And shopping for holiday gifts should never be dangerous. ...
You know, sometimes I feel that America gets what it deserves.
I'm no Karma guru, but I've long felt that you get back what you put out and a nation whose culture is so obsessed with having "stuff" is destined to have problems like our current economic debacle.
But when America actually becomes so hell-bent on the day-after-Thanksgiving sale, traditionally known in retail circles as "Black Friday" that we actually kill a man so that we can get that new iPod or flat screen TV, then we deserve an economic depression.
Some enterprising students at Ludlum Elementary, in Long Island have helped change the name of their school to Barack Obama Elementary. If nothing else, this is a wonderful reflection of the example president-elect Obama has set for youth the world over.
Obama now joins the ranks of other prominent African Americans such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey and others who have this distinction. Kudos to those kids and kudos to this country for finally seeking change.
There is only one person on the political right wing that seems to have made a bigger fool of himself in the last five years than Sarah Palin and that's conservative, uh -- well, I really don't know what the hell he does for a living -- Alan Keyes. Actually he was a U.S. Ambassador under Reagan...big freakin' whoop.
Now, we've long known that Keyes is a staunch defender of what he calls traditional American Christian values. In fact, he is so far gone in his fixation on making America one big Father Knows Best marathon that he makes Pat Robertson look like Luther Campbell.
He was even made a boob of by comedian Sasha Baron Cohen in that fantastic movie of all things American Borat which was probably one of the best movies of the last 10 years simply because of its ability to clown people like Keyes.
But Keyes' latest foray into the absurd is his most stupid: a lawsuit claiming that President-Elect Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is thus ineligible to be president. ...
The tragic and public death of teenager Abraham Biggs brings to light two social phenomena that continue to be poorly understood: the threat of suicide and how to prevent it; as well as the so-called bystander effect, which is exaggerated by the detached nature of communication via the Internet. Suicide is often used as a cry for help -- a call to put an end to intolerable emotional pain.
Many might see those who talk about killing themselves as just crying wolf, but there is a clear way to differentiate between those who truly intend to follow through from those who haven't reached that breaking point.
Biggs had a plan: a well thought out, calculated strategy carried out in front of a wide online audience. A professional would have known that his suicide letter posted on another site, a Webcam set up and history of depression were clear indications that he meant business.
Unfortunately, the basics of suicide prevention aren't common knowledge to enough members of the public.
Often times we see ourselves as being helpless to influence someone in such dire need of help.However, asking the simple question, "Do you have a plan?" can save someone's life. Anyone planning suicide needs swift and professional help and should be under that kind of care until they can be stabilized....
According to AP, the nomination's going to come after Thanksgiving. Friday afternoon, the New York Times reported that Clinton plans to quit her Senate seat and accept the cabinet position, according to unnamed sources.
Sean Bell's family met with Federal prosecutors on Tuesday, one week before the second anniversary of Bell's death. According to NY1:
The family of police shooting victim Sean Bell called on the Department of Justice Tuesday to bring federal civil rights charges against the detectives involved in his death.
The family's attorney met with federal prosecutors to get an update on the investigation.
Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper were acquitted of criminal charges back in April.
Bell was shot and killed after leaving a Queens nightclub in November 2006.
Bell's family expressed cautious optimism when asked about the meetings.
If there were ever a time for an entire region to collectively shout OH $HIT! This is it.
The news is dominated with reports of the collusion between the CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and their hat-in-hand "bruh-man, bruh-man, spare change, spare change" request from Congress. It is a very scary Detroit doomsday scenario that has attracted no shortage of supporters and critics. A few conversations that I've had with friends and relatives in my hometown paint a very real, very human picture of what could happen if a $25 billion bailout of the auto industry does not happen.
Now first off, I'm the last one who would call for private industry to continue to suck on a government tit. Right now our federal deficit is in the trillions and past presidential administrations have allowed the financial industry to run around like unsupervised kindergarteners, only resulting in the Fed loosening and whipping out a boob and squirting $700 billion worth of breast milk into the waiting mouths of the banking business.
But that left only one more boob for another brat: Big Auto, a set of siamese triplets that is just as demanding and hungry as big banking. A decade and a half ago, things were good for this industry, with its SUVs and minivans, which an America that continued to live well above its means screamed for. ...
Whodini once said that "the freaks come out at night." But in the case of President-elect Obama's cabinet picks, they'll probably be out closer to noon every day.
Case in point: on Tuesday news outlets reported that Washington lawyer and former deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration Eric Holder would be Obama's choice for Attorney General when he takes office in January and the nation's first African-American to hold the spot.
Now, of course Holder should be held to proper scrutiny and vetting and the media should do its due diligence when looking this guy over. But it didn't take an entire day before conservatives (whom I thought were supposed to be regrouping after they got their gnads handed to them on election day) decided to blast the cybersphere with all sorts of distraction about Holder.
I can hardly wait until Matt Drudge goes on the attack. ...
Since election night a few weeks ago, the passing of Proposition 8 in California--legislation that bans gay marriage--has become a hot-button issue among blacks, whites, Hispanics, etc... The reason: many Americans believe that freedom for all means the ability to marriage whoever you love, regardless of the gender. Others disagree.
Where do you stand?
Simply put, Black Voices wants to know if you are for or against gay marriage.
I get the feeling most Americans would like to say an early good bye to the current White House resident and get an early start with President-elect Obama. And it's no surprise - given how vacant the White House has been the past year as the nation has tumbled into a financial ditch.
I think President-elect Obama feels the same way.
For a nation crying out for leadership and change, just having a president-elect who seems fully engaged for the difficult tasks ahead is a breath of fresh air and will should provide a needed psychological boost for us all during these dreary times. ...
Find out what members are saying about everyone from Barack to Beyonce. There are nearly 100 forums from which to choose. Click on a category below and discover the right board for you.
Maybe he'll get it right this time.
Today President-Elect Barack Obama introduced his choices for his national security team, which had been under speculation by pundits since the election. Leading the pack was New York 
December 2nd is 
Wal-Mart incited this tragedy all on it's own by publicizing greedy deals and hyping the day after Thanksgiving as a "doorbuster" event.
There is only one person on the political right wing that seems to have made a bigger fool of himself in the last five years than 
Sean Bell's family met with Federal prosecutors on Tuesday, one week before the second anniversary 
ince election night a few weeks ago, 