THE CASH STUFF FOR 12-19-2013

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                                                            KEITH SUTTON

EXCLUSIVE

SUTTON RESPONDS; REJECTS

“ELITIST” ATTITUDE – PART 1

By Cash Michaels

            For the past two weeks since his Wake School Board colleagues voted 7-2 to remove him as chairman, Keith Sutton has been stoic in his restraint.

            He’s had to tolerate remarks from his successor, Christine Kushner, that “The board is bigger than one person,” and from board colleague Prof. Jim Martin that board disunity in electing Kushner was Sutton’s fault, as if he was supposed to vote for his own dismissal.

            He’s even had to put up with emailed personal attacks from the head of a local parents’ group who feels Sutton hasn’t been responsive enough.

            But when the former Wake School Board chairman heard a recording of remarks made by Martin and Kushner at the Dec. 11^th Wake African-American Caucus meeting in his District 4 East Raleigh territory, Sutton decided he had restrained himself long enough.

            It had become clear to him that while Kushner and other board members feared being seen throwing Sutton “under the bus” by the public and the media, they had no problem doing so one-on-one or in closed meetings with various people in the community, thus attempting to undermine his notable accomplishments as chairman for the past year.

            Sutton told The Carolinian Newspaper, which provided him with the recording after attending that Wake AAC meeting by invitation last week, that his side of his tenure should be told, not necessarily to counter any one individual who has criticized him, but to clarify the record.

            In an exclusive interview Monday, Sutton spoke his piece.

            “I was disappointed in the outcome of the vote,” the former chairman told The Carolinian Newspaper. “I certainly would have liked to have served two terms as chair, “ Sutton continued, noting that most Wake School Board chairmen in the system’s history have served the maximum two-year term by tradition and practice.

Even Kevin Hill, who was board chair for only six months in 2009 before the Republican majority took control and immediately removed him, was given a year to continue when the Democrats took back the board in 2011.

            Sutton has been the only chair in recent memory limited by the board to just one term (in 2009, Chairwoman Rosa Gill voluntarily left when appointed to fill out the unexpired term of House Rep. Dan Blue, who had moved over to the state Senate).

            “It was my hope that we as a board could have gotten back to some of the continuity and stability that we have had, particularly in the chair position,” Sutton said, adding that he was grateful that colleagues had given him the opportunity to serve at least one year as chair in December 2012.

            Sutton saw his role as school board chair as setting the tone, identifying the board’s priorities, and then moving forward with the board to accomplish that agenda.

            Sometimes, certain situations and time restraints required the chair to use his best judgment, and in crisis situations, that’s what Sutton did without apology.

            One accusation posited by a board member (who The Carolinian agreed not to name) was that between Sutton’s job in state government, being the father of two children, and other commitments, he just didn’t have the time to fully serve as chair.

            Given all of the major challenges that Sutton took on and accomplished on behalf of the board in the past year, he bristles at the accusation that his commitments kept him from doing the important work.

            “Like most board members, I work a full-time job,” Sutton said, noting that most parents in the county also work to support their families, so it helped him, as chair, understand their challenges. “As most parents in this county and this system, I work a full-time job, so that’s nothing different or nothing new.”

             In that vain, Sutton had a pointed message for his detractors.

            “Because the current chair [Christine Kushner] does not work, [it was suggested] that she would have more time to commit to the position,” Sutton said. “And while she may have more time, that’s certainly obvious, I don’t know if that’s a requirement to be chair, or to be a member of the board.”

            “And that just strikes me as a bit of an elitist attitude to say [that] one has the ability to stay at home and not work, and therefore have more time to commit to the position,” Sutton continued bluntly. “The insinuation that [one] might be able to do a better job or do things differently because of that, just strikes me as being a little bit elitist.”

            The allegations that were made during the Dec. 11^th meeting of the Wake African-American Caucus, an auxiliary of the Wake Democratic Party, are of particular interest to Sutton. He arrived at the meeting late, unaware that school board Chairwoman Christine Kushner and fellow board colleague Prof. Jim Martin would be there, let alone be asked to explain why was Sutton removed as chair.

            In her brief remarks to the Wake AAC – remarks that The Carolinian was invited to cover by Wake AAC Chair Jannet Barnes – Kushner insinuated that the school board was not united under Sutton’s leadership style, so much so that, “…my colleagues came to me and wanted me to consider leadership.”

            Compared to Kushner’s brief and discreet remarks, Prof. Jim Martin virtually gave a rhetorical PowerPoint presentation of how, in his opinion, Sutton failed to successfully lead on moving new student assignment policies into implementation over the past year, and how Sutton allegedly denied the board any input into the formulation of the Schools Safety Task Force.

            ““It’s the kind of leadership, the style of leadership that the board was not included, and frankly those issues are issues that are important to me…,” Martin told the Wake AAC.

            Prof. Martin then, in an effort to soften his tone, inexplicably said that Sutton, “…has much value to bring, as does Monika Johnson-Hostler, another African-American member of our board.”

            Why Martin deliberately singled out the board’s only two African-American members, as if to say that contrary to popular belief, the seven other white members’ vote to remove Sutton was not racial, is not clear.

            But it didn’t help.

            Sutton didn’t react to the racial aspect of Prof. Martin’s remarks, but he did take umbrage with other remarks, without calling either Martin or Kushner by name.

            Sutton is on record as voting against the ill-fated Republican school choice plan in 2011 (before Martin got on the board) because he feared that it would create more high poverty schools, which it did.

            When the Democrats took back the board majority, they tried to give the school choice plan time to work in 2012 until it became clear that it wouldn’t. The plug was pulled and then Supt. Tony Tata was fired.

            Sutton says in the aftermath, the board had few maps to work with to then develop a new student assignment plan and policy that would ensure proximity and stability. So a stopgap measure and new policies were adopted until a full plan could be developed.

            But there were also more pressing priorities that the board was looking down the barrel at that Sutton, as chair, felt had to be addressed immediately – namely the filling of two vacated board seats left by Republicans Chris Malone and Debra Goldman, and the process of hiring a new schools superintendent.

            Add to those trying to build bridges to a testy Republican-led Wake County Commission Board which was threatening not to push for the $810 million school construction bond; preparing for a new $1.2 billion budget with a $30 million gap that would not cut teachers in a bad economy; and then dealing with two unforeseen legislative challenges by the county commissioners to take control of the school system’s properties and redraw the school board’s district voting maps, and Sutton says, in his judgment, that with one major challenge after another, something had to be left on the shelf for later attention.

            Then there was the recent staff recommendation that because there would be no new schools opening soon, there was no need to reassign or move students. Instead, a new three-year plan would be drafted, using the new policies, starting the 2014-15 school year with the CTE and other new schools coming on line.

            So despite implications expressed by Martin that not moving forward with a new student assignment plan was a failure in leadership, Sutton says the record shows there were vital priorities which had to come first.

            Another issue was the formation of the Schools Safety Task Force, an ad hoc committee to study campus security Sutton says is in the purview of the chair to create and appoint members to.

            WCPSS staff had proposed spending $2 million to $3 million on hiring unarmed security personnel in the schools, especially in the 105 elementary schools. Sutton, some on the board, and members of the community had problems with that, so he decided the concern deserved expert study.

            With the support of the interim superintendent at the time, and head of WCPSS security, Sutton created the task force.

            He adds that members of the board were involved, and did make recommendations as to who should serve.

            The former chair says it made sense to appoint the highest ranking law enforcement official in the county to co-chair the task force, namely Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison, not only because in case of a school shooting or emergency anywhere in the county, his would be the lead local agency answering the call, but also so that Harrison could bring Emergency Management and other responsible agencies to the table for their considered analysis.

            Plus, the fact that Sheriff Harrison is Republican sent a strong message that school security was a bipartisan issue, and should be treated that way, Sutton says.

            And as for retired Raleigh Police Captain Al White, Sutton felt that his current role in administrative security at North Carolina Central University in Durham was a needed element when it came to knowing how large school campuses are laid out, and what the most effective ways of securing them would be.

            Sutton said he then carefully chose representatives of various disciplines, including mental health, substance abuse, the law and even parents to fill out the board so that a comprehensive set of recommendations would come forth.

            “When we came out with those names, I heard very few, if any complaints,” Sutton recalls, saying that he wanted that bi-partisan task force to have credibility so that both sides of all issues could be openly be discussed at the table.

            The task force did issue its final report of recommendations during the summer. Having WCPSS create its own police force, as Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Moore county school systems have, was not part of that report, Sutton said, primarily because of the expense and practicality.

            Sheriff Harrison, however, felt compelled to personally give his own assessment that Wake School System should develop its own police force because of the importance of a centralized authority in times of crisis. Sutton reiterates that that was the sheriff’s own opinion, but it was not part of the official task force report.

            Regarding why he didn’t ask for certain school board members’ votes for reelection as chair, Sutton said that with all the board had been facing this past year, it would have been inappropriate to begin politicking before the school bond passed and the October elections. But as soon as the elections were over, Sutton was surprised to learn that Christine Kushner was already being touted by a majority of the board to oppose him for leadership.

            In the weeks leading up to the December 3^rd vote to remove him, Sutton had several heated discussions with some of those who opposed him. But the handwriting on the wall.

What has struck Sutton, and observers of the Democrat-led Wake School Board for the past year as odd, is that whatever disagreements of substance that some felt warranted Sutton’s removal as chair, never really reared their ugly heads. Many of the very board members who voted to oust Sutton, are the same board members who voted approval when that same chairman brought issues to the table for their support and ratification.

            Indeed, if there any strong differences of opinion with the chair, or strong feelings regarding needed agenda items that should be priority, rarely was that made known at the table, Sutton agrees.

            “While I’m chair, and have the ability to certainly influence certain decisions and give some direction, there’s not a whole lot I can do by myself or on my own,” Sutton says. “ I am one vote of nine…”

            “At that time, I heard very little concern, if any about these issues being raised at this point. So if the criticism is about my kind of leadership, my style of leadership, I make no apologies for that. It has given direction, it’s being decisive, and being strategic in what we were doing, an if you look at this past year and what we accomplished, as a board, in passing a bond, in hiring a superintendent – and having an open and fair process in doing that – to getting a good solid budget passed, in having some success with the Legislature to hold onto construction and maintenance of our schools, and the community feeling comfortable with that, and trusting us to not just continuing to build schools, but with $800 million of their money to build sixteen more.”

            “I think we were able to reestablish some credibility in the community, establish some confidence in this board and in the school district. So I make no apologies for the kind of leadership I provided. Quite frankly, I’m very proud of it, and proud of what we accomplished this year as a board.

            In Part 2 next week, Sutton discusses why, sometimes, he had to go it alone.

                                                                        -30-

                                                  NCSU PROF. JIM MARTIN

EXCLUSIVE

PROF. MARTIN BLASTS

SUTTON’S LEADERSHIP

By Cash Michaels

Editor

            In the most candid remarks yet about the ouster of Keith Sutton as Wake School Board chairman, school board member Prof. Jim Martin says he voted against board Sutton returning for a second term not only because “He never asked me for my vote,” but also because Sutton made critical decisions Martin didn’t agree with.

            It has been over two weeks since the seven white members of the nine-member Wake Board of Education voted to oust their successful African-American board Chairman Sutton for reasons that were cryptic at best.

            Publicly, new board Chair Christine Kushner, who served as board vice chair under Sutton for the past year, and the six other members who voted with her to unseat Sutton, would only say that there needed to be a change in “leadership style,” that “the board is bigger than just one person” and that the leadership change was an “internal board matter,” even though state statute doesn’t allow for any such thing beyond employee and real estate issues.

            Prof. Martin, arguably the school board’s most outspoken member and chemistry professor at North Carolina State University, even suggested to the press that the 7-2 vote to oust Sutton was his fault because he would not go along with a unanimous vote for Kushner.

            The goal was not to publicly throw Sutton “under the bus,” Kushner has insisted, but rather immediately present an image of a united Democrat-led Wake School Board that has “come together” to tackle the daunting issues of growing high poverty schools, student assignment, and improving academic standards, among others, with a minimum of controversy as possible.

            But several leaders in the African-American community, including Raleigh District C City Councilman Eugene Weeks; Wake County Commissioner James West; and Rev. Dr. Earl C. Johnson, president of the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association; were not satisfied with the reasons given for the ouster of, perhaps, one of the most effective Wake School Board chairmen in the history of the school system.

            Unless there was some clear evidence of malfeasance, and there wasn’t any, it was hard to understand, given the desperate and rudderless shape the Wake School Board was mired in in December 2012 until Chairman Sutton took over, why a leader who successfully achieved passage of a much-needed $810 million school construction bond; the hiring of an experienced school superintendent; the adoption of a new balanced budget that didn’t layoff any teachers; fought off Republican legislative attempts to take control of school system properties; and ultimately helped to rebuild community confidence in the school board’s ability to function, would be then unceremoniously kicked to the curb by his colleagues a year later.

            One other local black leader also had a hard time understanding what was done, and why.

            Jannet Barnes, chairwoman of the influential Wake African-American Caucus, an auxiliary of the Wake County Democratic Party, wanted answers, so she invited both new school board Chair Kushner, and Prof. Martin, to address the caucus at its Dec. 11^th meeting at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh.

            Barnes also personally invited The Carolinian Newspaper to come and cover the event, in hopes of getting a better accounting for the community.

            Ms. Barnes put no restrictions on The Carolinian, and a reporter for the paper publicly identified himself when asked, so both Kushner and Martin knew he was in the room when they spoke.

            Sutton had been invited, but did not arrive until after Kushner and Martin made their remarks.

            Then Barnes made it clear in her remarks that the ousting of school board Chairman Keith Sutton without “reasonable” cause, was unacceptable to Wake’s African-American community, and unless it was satisfied shortly, it may have ramifications for black Democratic support come 2016 when all of the school board seats are up for re-election.

            “I’m very disturbed about some of the things that are going on, and this is to the two Board of Education members,” Chairwoman Barnes told Kushner, Martin, and the rest of the Democratic officials and members present. “You can say this is personnel…it may be personnel issues to you, but it’s personal to the African-American community, and we need some reasonable explanation, because if you read what’s going on in the papers, there was politicking going before some of our board members were even sworn-in, and even had a voice at the table.”

            Barnes went on to say that Sutton was the only Wake School Board member she saw during her canvassing across the county actively promoting the school construction bond referendum before civic groups and churches.

            “We just need a reasonable explanation, and if we can’t get a reasonable explanation that satisfies us…,” Barnes warned before asking Kushner and Martin to explain themselves, further challenging them to explain why, “…you felt you could not comfortably sit under another tenure of Keith Sutton’s leadership.”

            For her part, Chairwoman Kushner, who later admitted that “it was tempting to stay home,” cryptically said that, “…it…was important that we come together as a board, and I don’t want to throw any of my colleagues under the bus or betray any conversations I’ve had with them. My colleagues came to me and wanted me to consider leadership. We have a great board of nine. We have to come together as a board.”

            Kushner then immediately pivoted to assure Barnes and the rest of the Wake AAC that the new board is just as committed to addressing the issues of school suspensions, improving academic standards, etc. as Wake AAC was, and invited them to work together with the school board, assuring all that Keith Sutton, who also represents predominately black District 4, stills plays a vital role on the board.

            Kushner tried hard to be discreet and restrained in an effort not to antagonize. However, Prof. Martin, as expected, went vigorously in the opposite direction.

            Where the new chairwoman only slightly defended Sutton’s ouster, Martin virtually made it clear that it certainly had to happen in order for the school board to move forward on the issues he cared about.

            Martin opined that “the leadership of any board was generally the board’s decision,” and what the Wake School Board did was essentially no different from what happens when other boards vote for a new direction without giving full public disclosure.

            ‘That is the case here,” Prof. Martin added.

            He said that he found it “a little intriguing” that board members would be criticized for “politicking” to oust Sutton prior to new board members being sworn-in, saying, “It would strike me as being very unwise not to have discussions ahead of time.”

            “That is, as far as I can tell, normal operation of any board,” Martin insisted.

            As Chairwoman Kushner cringed in her seat as Martin began his prolonged case against Sutton, the vocal college professor then got into specifics, first by seemingly backhanding Sutton, saying, “He never even asked for my vote” to continue as chair.

            “So I find that a little bit intriguing, from a personal perspective,” Martin said, then justifying his reasoning by confusingly saying, “You all want us to ask you for our vote, and show us why we would do that, and it would strike me that that is part of a leadership decision, and I can tell you that that didn’t happen,” reiterating that through all of the conversations he’s had with Sutton, the former chairman “never” asked Martin for his vote “for leadership.”

             “And it strikes me that that is a fundamental thing that any leader should ask,” Martin insisted to the audience.

            But then, prefacing his further remarks with, “The main reason for my vote [against Sutton] is I look at where we are…,” Prof. Martin proceeded to criticize what he felt were specific policy issues where he apparently strongly differed from his board colleague.

            Martin said the board “worked really hard” to develop a new student assignment policy months ago to alleviate some of the ills from the previous Republican school choice plan. Martin said the new policies weren’t adopted until things were “nearly to crisis level.”

            “I believe if we could have made headway earlier, we would have had less of a crisis,” Martin said, suggesting that then Chairman Sutton didn’t move fast enough to lead the overhauling of the failed school choice plan.

            Martin maintained that the most recent student assignment policy the board adopted is a good policy, but that it has not been implemented as a plan, and he feels that is a mistake. Saying the Republican school choice plan made the problem of high poverty schools in the system “incredibly worse,” Martin said the school board implemented a “stop gap measure” that has been in place for the past year, much longer than he would have liked.

            “We haven’t seen that change. We need to see change,” Martin said.

            On the school safety task force which came about after the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings a year ago in Connecticut, Martin said board members had “no input” into Chairman Sutton’s decision of appointing Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison and former Raleigh Police Capt. Al White to co-chair the ad hoc committee.

            “As soon as I heard about it, I gave Mr. Sutton a list of several people I wanted to see on that task force,” Martin said. “I do not believe that task force should have been chaired by Sheriff Harrison, I’m sorry.”

            “When that task force report came out,” Martin continued, “…what happened? Sheriff Harrison disregarded the work of the entire task force, and called for the creation of  [a] Wake County Schools police force. That was not the Board of Education’s decision, that was not the Board of Education’s decision how to construct that task force.”

            Martin went to say that “a lot of really good work” came out of the task force that neither he nor any other board member had any input in.

            “I believe the Board of Education should have helped select that task force. I don’t believe it should have been formulated the way it was,” Martin said.

            “It’s the kind of leadership, the style of leadership that the board was not included, and frankly those issues are issues that are important to me, and I believe are important to you,” Prof. Martin said, adding. “And I believe we’re going to see progress, because I believe there is a commitment on our board to improve safety, to improve discipline issues, to improve assignment issues, and I think you going to see this board moving forward, and I don’t think you’re going to see that assignment policy sitting on the shelf.”

            Realizing that he may have gone way off the reservation of Chairwoman Kushner’s comfort level, or revealed some of his deeper disdain for Keith Sutton’s leadership, Prof. Martin then took on a patronizing tone.

“I hope I’m not giving too much information, I respect Mr. Sutton very highly, I will work with him, and I told him, however the vote would go, I will work with whoever becomes chair. He has a lot to offer. We need him as a member of our board,” Martin offered.

After hailing Sutton’s call that more school system business should go to “minority” businesses, Martin continued, “Mr. Sutton brings a lot of value, he is a member of our team. This is not “throwing under the bus.” This is not “stabbing him in the back.” He has much value to bring, as does Monika Johnson-Hostler, another African-American member of our board.”

“I don’t believe you see a black-and-white board,” Martin said, referring to the fact that all of the white board members voted against the board’s only two African-Americans to oust Sutton.

“I don’t.”

When Sutton did arrive at the Wake AAC meeting after the remarks, as The Carolinian reporter was leaving, board colleague Jim Martin was laughing and talking with Sutton, apparently not sharing the critical tone he publicly took about Sutton before he arrived.

            The Carolinian sent a digital recording of both Kushner and Martin’s remarks to Sutton to listen to, and asked him if he would like to respond.

            After listening, Sutton agreed to an exclusive interview to answer Martin and Kushner’s allegations, along with others made by some of his critics. Part 1 of the exclusive interview appears in this edition, and can be heard on the radio program “Make It Happen” on Power 750 WAUG-AM, and www.mywaug.com this afternoon at 4 p.m.

                                                                        -30-

TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 12-19-13

WAKE SCHOOL SYSTEM STILL #1 IN NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFIED TEACHERS

            With 71 teachers newly certified by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards for 2013, the Wake County Public School System remains the Number 1 school district in the nation for the most board certified teachers on staff. Wake has 2,365 certified educators. National Board Certified teachers demonstrate advanced teaching knowledge, skills, and practices. “These teachers have demonstrated a commitment to professional excellence and leadership. We are proud that they teach in Wake County,” Superintendent Jim Merrill said.

LATINO TEEN SHOT SELF IN HEAD, SAY DURHAM POLICE

            Durham police have now confirmed that an Hispanic high schooler fatally shot himself in the head while being transported in the back of a police cruiser. But the question remains, how did the gun get back there, and why did 17-year-old Jesus Huerta kill himself. Police Chief Jose Lopez confirmed that it was not a police weapon that killed Huerta. He also confirmed that Huerta was searched and handcuffed behind his back. The state medical examiner confirmed cause of death. The SBI is still investigating.

RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL TO HOLD THREE-DAY RETREAT IN WILMINGTON

            For one of his first acts as the new Raleigh city manager, Ruffin Hall now has the Raleigh City Council taking a three-day Jan. 29- 31 retreat to Wilmington, at a cost of over $11,000, to come up with a new strategic plan for the city. It will be the first time the council has seen the need to hold an official brain trust session beyond the Capital City borders in 23 years. Hall, who served as Charlotte deputy city manager before coming to Raleigh last month, says leaving Raleigh will limit distractions for staff and council, and maximize working time.

                                                           -30-

STATE NEWS BRIEFS 12-19-13

VOTING LAW TRIAL PUT OFF UNTIL AFTER 2014 ELECTIONS

            [WINSTON-SALEM] Saying that the issues surrounding North Carolina’s new voting restrictions are “too complicated” to be thoroughly hashed out in a short period of time, a federal judge last week ruled that there will be no trial until 2015, well after the 2014 elections. Judge Joi Peake did say that she would consider issuing injunctions to stop certain aspects of the law before 2014 if petitioned. The US Justice Dept., the NCNAACP and others are suing the state, claiming that new voting restrictions passed by the NC General Assembly are unconstitutional because they attempt to suppress the African-American vote.

APPROXIMATELY 9,000 IN NC HAVE SIGNED UP FOR OBAMACARE

            [CHARLOTTE] Despite all of the reported website problems at www.healthcare.gov, nearly 9,000 North Carolinians have signed up on the federal exchange for health insurance, says published reports. North Carolina does not have a state exchange, so residents are forced to use the federal counterpart. While certainly an improvement over the mere 1,600 who signed up in October after the enrollment period opened, 9,000 is a far cry from the nearly 1 million North Carolinians who reportedly do not have healthcare. The deadline for making application is Dec. 23^rd for coverage to begin Jan. 1, 2014.

UNC AIDS RESEARCHER CONVICTED IN MORAL MONDAY TRIAL

            [RALEIGH] An AIDS researcher at UNC Hospitals was convicted last week of second-degree trespassing for taking part in the Moral Monday protests. Dr. Charles van der Horst tearfully testified that he demonstrated at the NC General Assembly because the state had denied extending Medicaid coverage to poor North Carolinians, and some of those denied were his patients. Dr. van der Horst, and another defendant, Tye Hunter, for executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, who was also convicted on the same charge, immediately appealed the verdict. Both were found not guilty of violating Legislative building rules.

                                                            -30-

CASH IN THE APPLE

By Cash Michaels

Editor

             MEGYN'S "WHITE" PROBLEM - Boy, did Fox News faker Megyn Kelly stick her big stylish foot in her big blabber mouth when she said Santa Claus was white, and so is Jesus Christ.
             And they say that white supremacy is just a state of mind.
             Kelly was trying to counter a piece by a black writer who suggested that given the universality of the fictional Santa Claus at Christmas time, the time has come to truly allow children of all colors and cultures to interpret him as they wish.
             That doesn't seem to be too difficult a request, and most parents seem to buy it.
             So we understand if Megyn Kelly kept it in her head, since she was a kid, that Santa Claus is white, and she wants him to stay that way.
              Sounds like a personal choice for her, and that is her right, as long as she restricts it to her and her children.
              But here's the one I can't excuse her - that Jesus is white.
              There has been much research on this issue, frankly too much for Kelly or any of her playmates at Fox News to ignore.
               Even Wikipedia has something to say on the subject:
                A face was constructed using forensic anthropology by Richard Neave, a retired medical artist from the Unit of Art in Medicine at the University of Manchester. The face that Neave constructed suggested that Jesus would have had a broad face and large nose, and differed significantly from the traditional depictions of Jesus in renaissance art. Additional information about Jesus' skin color and hair was provided by Mark Goodacre, a New Testament scholar and professor at Duke University.Using third-century images from a synagogue—the earliest pictures of Jewish people—Goodacre proposed that Jesus' skin color would have been darker and swarthier than his traditional Western image. He also suggested that he would have had short, curly hair and a short cropped beard. This is also confirmed in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where Paul the Apostle states that it is "disgraceful" for a man to have long hair.  As Paul knew many of the disciples and members of Jesus' family, it is unlikely that he would have written such a thing had Jesus had long hair.Although not literally the face of Jesus, the result of the study determined that Jesus' skin would have been more olive-colored than white, and that he would have looked like a typical Galilean Semite.              
                So, I would fully recommend to Ms. Kelly in the future that since you work for a so-called "news" organization at Fox, that someone there who knows how to work a computer look stuff up before you insert foot in mouth on national television in the future.
              Yes?

              GOOD MOVE - Without so much as a word or warning, last week, singer Beyonce' released her fifth album on iTunes titled "Beyonce," and sold over 600,000 copies at $15.99 each, which included 12 new songs and 17 new music videos.
              Homegirl didn't spend one red cent on pre-promotion, nor release a single beforehand, just dropped it online and said, "Here it is."
              Why? Normally there are months of build up to a major album release by a major artist.
               Simple, Beyonce' says. She didn't want anything to come between her music and her fans - no false reports, no bad reports, no stupid predictions.
                Just "Here it is, come get it," and let the music do the rest.
                I'm not a big Beyonce' fan (though she is one of GOD's most beautiful creatures ever). But I have to give her props on this ingenious idea. She may have just revolutionized album marketing...by not doing any of it!
                Cool!

               MESSIAH COMPLEX – A lot of people are upset that last week, a national newspaper declared that President Obama told the “Lie of the Year” when he said, “ If you have health insurance that you like, you can keep it,” referring the Affordable Care Act.

We all know now that that wasn’t true. Policyholders who have health insurance plans before the ACA was passed have been able to keep their policies – true.

But if you changed so much as a sentence in the old plan after the ACA was passed and made law, that nullified your plan, and that’s when the letters went to surprised individuals forcing them to purchase a new plan on the state or federal exchanges.

In many of those 4-5 million cases, folks did not qualify for the federal subsidies, meaning that they had to pay a higher price (incomes were too high) for new health insurance, and couldn’t get it because of the website screw-up.

And yet, those folks were told, just like the rest of us, that nothing would happen.

We also know now that, like it or not, Pres. Obama knew that wasn’t true when he said it, but said it anyway.

I’ve gotten folks very upset with me (and probably more so because I’m writing this column now) for even uttering the possibility that the black president we all love and are over-protective of, actually lied to us.

“He was mistaken” or “he misspoke,” or even better yet, “…those nasty, greedy insurance companies tricked him”…all of that has been applied. But the thought of Barack Obama lying to us…UNTHINKABLE to many people.

One of the reasons why we find it not only abhorrent to even suggest that the president was even dishonest with us once, no matter what the reason, is because he is under such great pressure and scrutiny from the right-wing Republicans. There can be no doubt that the GOP, and specifically the Tea Party, currently exists with the singular mission of destroying this black president, if not his legacy.

They want to hurt him, undermine his tenure in office, and overturn, if possible, and every accomplishment he’s achieved as president.

Heck, the right-wing are STILL trying to prove that Barack Obama “really isn’t” president of the United States, marching to federal court houses across the nation, filing  “birther” lawsuits to prove the skinny black guy with big ears somehow fooled the entire US intelligence and political establishment by getting himself elected to the highest and most powerful office in world…TWICE!

So I understand the angst, the "Messiah complex" about even being perceived as “attacking” Obama.

But unfortunately, that’s not what this is about.

The president did lie, meaning he did it deliberately. Certainly not to hurt anyone, and in fact, he did it to protect his Affordable Care Act from easy Republican attack.

But if the definition of a “lie” is to willfully and knowingly express a falsehood, then that’s what the president did.

Here are the facts.

The Obama Administration, the insurance companies and the major pharmaceutical companies all met and reached agreement on what the ACA would look like when it was introduced in Congress in 2009. Obviously, this was a give-and-take situation, meaning private industry did its best to protect its profits before signing on.

For instance, those meetings were one of the reasons why a single-payer health insurance system was taken completely off the table by the White House as a bargaining chip. The stipulation about grandfathering in old policies was written into the bill. BUT, what was also written, and was agreed to by the Obama Administration, was that any changes, even the slightest changes to any of those grandfathered policies AFTER the ACA was passed, would automatically disqualify those policies, forcing their owners to get new policies on the exchange.

CITIZENS DID NOT KNOW THAT, AND WERE NEVER TOLD THAT! The president DID know it because he agreed to it. But, on advice from his staff, sold the mantra of "If you already have a policy, keep it. Period," while on the stump selling it across the nation.

 He and his people pushed that because they believed if he had to get into the weeds about the real details, the Republicans would crucify him, and defeat passage. Remember, the ACA had fired up the Tea Party in the summer of 2009. Sarah Palin was doing her "death panels" bit, and that stuff was starting to stick. The Obama Administration's hope was that the website would work so well, that the 4-5 million people negatively affected would be a drop in the bucket compared to the 30-40 million they would try to reach. They also hoped that the federal subsidies that would kick in would give those dropped policyholders better coverage at perhaps the same or a lower cost.

The Obama Administration did NOT anticipate the website screwing up, nor did they anticipate that many of those policyholders would have incomes that did not allow the fed subsidies to kick in for them, thus dramatically lowering the price.

 Thus, the disaster we had. Now I’ve just stated the facts after careful research, and also after taking part in a public interview with NY Rep. Gregory Meeks. I don't state the above to be "superior" or to attack the president, or any nonsense like that! I'm reporting it for what happen, NOT for what I want it to be.

But more importantly, I cannot hold Barack Obama to a different standard than I would a Republican president in the same situation. That only weakens him. That would mean that because he is black and I like him, I'm lowering the standard for him because that's what I'm expected to do. Problem - the people who voted for him did so because they trusted him. My job is that when I find evidence of POTUS, or any other elected official violating that trust, for whatever reason, I am OBLIGATED to protect the people they serve, NOT the elected official. People were hurt and put in a bad situation because they trusted what the president repeatedly assured them. He has taken responsibility for that, and realized that should have never happened.

I'm not saying he's a bad man; but I am saying that under the pressure of Washington politics, he said something he knew wasn't true for the sake of getting his signature ACA passed. We've all bent the truth when it suited our purposes. But in his case, we are very protective because he is under constant attack. But on this one, he did it to himself, and knows it.

To say he didn't know what was in his own signature legislation is to, again, lessen him, absolve him of responsibility. Barack Obama is a grown man, and a good man, and HAS taken responsibility. Don't lessen him. He can, and will come back, if not having already started.

Make sure you tune in every Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show, ''Make It Happen'' on Power 750 WAUG-AM, or online at www.myWAUG.com. And read more about my thoughts and opinions exclusively at my blog, ‘The Cash Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html). I promise it will be interesting.

Cash in the Apple - honored as the Best Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.

And coming in February 2014, the NNPA-CashWorks HD Productions documentary presentation of, “Pardons of Innocence: The Wilmington Ten.”

Until next week, keep a smile on your face, GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.

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