I was privileged to attend the Annual Conference of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association for more than 200 newspapers in Black America. I was also honored to receive NNPA’s North Star Community Service Award, which is named after the militant newspaper founded by Frederick Douglass in 1847. It was a real treat to have the opportunity to meet and interact with Black writers and publishers from around the country. As a kid I can remember being a paperboy for the Pittsburgh Courier in the Hill District of the “steel city.” Every Thursday you could hear the voices of young boys hollering out “get your Pittsburgh Courrrrrrrrrier!” The few nickels and dimes I collected put some change in my pocket and enabled me to stride with a little pride.

(REAL TIMES MEDIA)—It’s a good thing that the Democrats passed health care reform last week. While it will still take some time for the bill to wind its way through the government, this passage will allow the president to finally “pivot” to addressing other issues facing the nation. Most pundits suggest he focus on the economy, but I have a better idea. He should focus on terrorism, it worked wonders for Bush. Every time he mentioned terrorism his approval numbers went up. If Obama really wants to rile up the public with a strong anti-terrorism stand he can start by looking in our own backyard at the growing militancy and violence associated with the Tea Party Patriots movement.

(NNPA)—Despite efforts to depict the so-called “tea bag protesters” as part of an independent political movement, new polling data reveal that approximately three-quarters of them are Republicans or lean toward the GOP and 77 percent of them voted for John McCain in 2008.

Those are the findings of a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.

“The Tea Party movement is mostly made up of people who consider themselves Republicans,” Pete A. Brown, assistant director of the university’s Polling Institute, said in a statement. “They are less educated but more interested in politics than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pack and are not in a traditional sense swing voters.”

According to the New York Times, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing that oil and gas facilities that inject carbon dioxide into the ground’s greenhouse gas sources report their annual emissions to the government. Of course, the industries are not happy about this—few sectors welcome government monitoring. The public, however, should be in support of the proposal. Greenhouse gases have a direct impact on the planet’s environment. If we do not understand how they are affected, we cannot begin to implement changes that can keep them under control.