Jesse Jackson

SHAKESPEARE was wrong. To solve our collective problems, we don't first kill all the lawyers. We first kill all of those we think might grow up to be criminals.That is the inescapable conclusion reached in an unpublished study circulating among economists and "experts" in criminal law.The study suggests that since abortion was made legal in 1973, the crime rate has declined.The implication is that crime is down because abortions are up. So, a good anti-crime package includes first killing all the babies our sociological models determine might grow up to be criminals.

WASHINGTON -- Jesse Jackson detected slights.When he got the three prisoners of war out of Slobodan Milosevic's grasp and back to the safety of Ramstein Air Base in Germany, he and his contingent of religious leaders expected a hot meal. Not just cold cuts.Gentle reader, this will not surprise you, but Jacksonians have been keeping a dis list. They feel the insults have been orchestrated by Clinton hawks livid that Mr. Jackson got out "our boys," as he calls them, and added to the pressure on the administration to rethink its wobbly war.The Jackson crowd felt it had not been met at the air base by a U.S. official of sufficient stature.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- With a bus, three camera crews and a panel of religious leaders in tow, the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in a war zone last night in a bid to gain the release of three captive U.S. soldiers.The high-stakes, unofficial mission was set against a back drop of continued allied bombing and intense diplomatic maneuvering to resolve the Kosovo crisis.Overriding objections of the Clinton administration that feared the mission might send mixed signals to the Belgrade leadership, Jackson said the group was engaged "in an earnest search and appeal for a diplomatic breakthrough that we might move from war to coexistence."

This is an edited excerpt of a Chicago Tribune editorial, which was published Thursday.LET's go to the videotape," the authorities in Decatur, Ill., said. And within a few hours, the reason for the Decatur School Board's position in the controversy over six expelled students was clear, the compromise it struck earlier in the week with Gov. George Ryan was vindicated.Too bad things had to become as inflamed as they did before the tape, a slam-dunk piece of evidence for the school board, was revealed.

LAST WEEK, Del. Howard P. Rawlings thought his months of maneuvering to get NAACP President Kweisi Mfume to run for mayor had paid off.In a telephone call from Ghana last Thursday, Mr. Mfume told Mr. Rawlings that he planned to hold a press conference today, where he would announce his resignation from the NAACP post.From their conversation, Mr. Rawlings expected Mr. Mfume to announce his plans to enter the mayoral race from the steps of City Hall this Saturday before a raucous crowd of supporters.

WHILE Slobodan Milosevic was clasping hands in prayer with the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson on Saturday, his troops were killing, raping, robbing and expelling Albanians from Kosovo.Mr. Jackson and his companions from other faiths, who flew to Belgrade without U.S. government approval, persuaded Mr. Milosevic to free three U.S. prisoners. These young soldiers, their families and Americans in general will always be grateful, and so they should be.But NATO was right not to suspend the bombing when Mr. Jackson urged it to do so, "to give peace a chance."

THE STOCK MARKET was closed yesterday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the first time that has happened since the federal holiday began 12 years ago. Getting Wall Street to do more than observe a moment of silence is the most significant result so far of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's latest campaign. There is much, however, that still needs to be done.Mr. Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition opened a Wall Street office last year. With Salomon Smith Barney Inc. and the New York Stock Exchange, it co-sponsored a three-day diversity conference last week.

THE GUEST on the Rev. Jesse Jackson's CNN television show Aug. 22 was Rev. Jerry Falwell. Mr. Jackson, who regularly bashed Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush for their foreign and domestic policies, and Mr. Falwell, who defended those Republican presidents, again found themselves on opposite sides.There was Mr. Jackson, quoting Scripture and asking why Mr. Falwell won't forgive Mr. Clinton's admitted affair with Monica Lewinsky.And there was Mr. Falwell saying that forgiveness was one thing, but the ability to lead was quite another, and he believes Mr. Clinton has lost that ability.

THE REV. Jesse Jackson blew into town Sunday, ranting and snorting and harrumphing that President Clinton is getting a raw deal, that mean ol' white boys are out to get him and that we should all rally to show our support for Cigar Boy.If Clinton is impeached, Jackson implied, all sorts of evil will follow. The mean ol' white boys will then target their wrath at the poor and elderly.Witness what we have here, fellow Americans. That rare and defining American event: the hapless trying to help the hopeless.

WASHINGTON -- If you were among those few Americans who watched the town meeting on race relations from Akron, Ohio, the other day, you saw the essence of President Clinton.A schmoozerMr. Clinton has always been a politician who loves to schmooze about issues and he was clearly in his element serving as the discussion leader in a meeting that, to no one's surprise, ran a half-hour longer than the scheduled 90 minutes. And Mr. Clinton also has been a politician who believes that it is possible to find common ground on questions that others consider irreconcilable.

LOS ANGELES - - Los Angeles police completed an "extensive interview" Saturday night with the doctor who was with Michael Jackson when the pop star went into cardiac arrest, and a source close to the investigation said detectives found "no red flag" during discussions about the death. A private pathologist, meanwhile, conducted a second autopsy on Jackson's body, hours after it was released to relatives by the Los Angeles County coroner. Coroner's officials had said that Jackson had been using prescription drugs, and the investigation is focused on whether Jackson overdosed.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Sen. Barack Obama's electric popularity is how eagerly, like a Rorschach ink-blot test, people see in him whatever they want to see. To some folks, for example, he isn't just running for president; he's running for the post of America's top black leader. In this spirit, some conservatives, in particular, can't wait to bum rush the current crop of media-anointed black leaders out the door. "The big losers, two big losers tonight are probably Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton," George Will observed after the Illinois senator swept the Iowa Democratic caucuses last week.

On Oct. 16, 1995, hundreds of thousands of African-American men from around the nation poured into Washington, D.C., in search of spiritual renewal and fraternal strength. As they stood together on the Mall, basking in the autumn sun, the men of the Million Man March pledged to take responsibility for their actions, to serve their families and their communities, and to improve themselves and the world in which they lived. Kurt Schmoke, then mayor of Baltimore, brought his 24-year-old stepson.

NATIONAL A strong defense of Title IX A girls basketball coach who complained that his players got shabbier treatment than the boys team -- and then found himself benched -- can sue for retaliation, the Supreme Court said yesterday in a case that expands the protections of a landmark gender-equity law. [Page 1a] School shooting probe widens A coordinated attack on targets beyond a Minnesota high school campus might have been planned by the shooter and others, a source familiar with the federal investigation said yesterday, but any plot to strike more targets fizzled when the other students either backed out or didn't take the scheme seriously.

Pop star Michael Jackson again declared yesterday that he is innocent of child molestation charges and suggested he's the victim of a conspiracy involving the valuable music copyrights he owns. For strength in the face of the criminal charges, he looks to the stories of oppressed black men, including South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, Jackson said. "Please be patient and be with me and believe in me, because I am completely, completely innocent," Jackson said to his fans in an often-sympathetic live radio interview conducted by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

YOU HAVE TO hand it to that Jesse Jackson: A dull guy, he ain't. Jackson was this year's keynote speaker at Johns Hopkins' 23rd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration yesterday. For most of his one-hour speech, he was the perfect man for the job. He preached. He taught. He scolded -- mostly conservatives, Republicans and the Bush administration. He cautioned his listeners not to focus so much on King's dream but on "the broken promise of the U.S. government that inspired the dream and made it necessary."

BOSTON - In coming years, last week's Democratic National Convention in Boston may be seen as a signal moment in the changing of the guard of the nation's black political leadership. It was the last act of the Rev. Al Sharpton's failed bid to grab the mantle long held by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the debut star turn of Barack Obama, the state senator from Chicago who is the odds-on favorite to become only the third black person in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction - and someone already being talked about for a future national ticket.

CHICAGO - As he paid homage to a key part of his political base yesterday, Sen. John Kerry pledged a presidency that would sharply boost college graduation while expanding economic opportunities for minorities. The presumed Democratic nominee, speaking in Chicago, pushed a plan that he said would both provide $10 billion for states that keep college tuition increases below inflation and give students an annual tuition tax credit of up to $4,000. "My friends, we can't rest until all Americans - and I mean all Americans, black and white, rich and poor, people of all colors and all backgrounds - truly have the opportunity they need to make the American dream real," Kerry told the annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference.

"No, no no, no. We aren't going up in that fire again." -- Cedric the Entertainer, when asked by AP Radio if he'd be joking about Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. in Barbershop 2.

WASHINGTON -- If you didn't know better, you might think that our most prominent black leaders were running out of serious causes to protest. That might explain why the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, among some others, decided to pick on one of the most thoughtful comedies about African-Americans that African-Americans in Hollywood have ever produced. I expected to put off seeing the new hit movie Barbershop until it came out on videotape. Movies are too big of a project, requiring too much planning and money, to be taken on capriciously in my family.