From Choppington, in North Umberland, UK:

Last updated at 21:08pm on 10th May 2008

Leanne Nicholson is in many ways like any other 18-year-old. Slim, blonde, pretty, and planning a career as a youth worker, she is devoted to her pony Merrylegs and her fluffy Pomeranian dog Timothy.

But she is also a medical miracle, and lucky to be alive.

In her short life Leanne has had no fewer than three hearts - the one she was born with and not one, but two transplanted hearts.

Today, she is recovering at her home in Choppington, in Northumberland, from her second heart transplant three months ago.
(more…)

IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING POSTS:
- May 14 — As Media Ogles, Stanley Kurtz Trumpets the Obviously Deep Obama-Wright Connections
- May 12 — Attention Stanley Kurtz Re Obama, Wright, Trumpet: I’ve Got You Covered

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Based on my review of the 125 or so weekly Trinity United Church of Christ church bulletins that I have — covering roughly 65% of those I would expect to have been issued from late May 2004 through late March 2008 — here are some of the notable luminaries who have graced the cover of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s usually-monthly Trumpet Newsmagazine.

I’ll concentrate on the ones whom I believe are the best-known. “Soon” (OK, maybe), I’m going to get to a chronology of magazine cover appearances, mentions, and topics.

Obama’s Appearances

Here, for those who missed it the first time around, are the three covers on which Barack Obama appeared (March 2007, roughly February-March 2006, and roughly January 2005, respectively; first and third images are clickable, and will open in a separate window):

Guess Who? It’s Lou

Besides Wright himself in earlier issues of the magazine, I found only one person who put in as many cover appearances as Obama in the bulletins I currently have available. Surprise (not) — That person would be “The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan” (Trumpet’s term, not mine).

Here are the Farrakhan appearances I found (and there may be others in the gaps I have between bulletins), from the most to least recent, appearing from left to right (all graphics are clickable; each will open in a separate window):

The first pic appears to be the November - December 2007 double issue, as found in the December 2, 2007 TUCC bulletin.

The second, as noted in this previous post, and pictured in the Obama collection above, is from roughly February 2006. Farrakhan appears in a pantheon of African-American “leaders,” including Barack Obama, Wright, and others (Little Green Footballs readers have identified many of the others at this LGF post; Martin Luther King is NOT in the picture). Farrakhan is on the far right in the third row; Obama is on the far left.

The third, yet another solo appearance (cover title: “Million Man Management”), was found in the October 16, 2005 bulletin, and is probably the October 2005 issue of Trumpet.

We’re supposed to believe Obama when he says that he has no idea that Farrakhan has been on Trumpet’s cover at least three times, in one instance sharing cover space with Farrakhan and Wright, his pastor. All the pundits and media types who are still running around claiming that Wright (and Ayers, and Rezko) don’t matter either don’t care, or somehow have no idea, how foolish the results of the last three primaries, and Obama’s multi-month downward trajectory, make them look.

The Usuals

You might expect the two usual “civil rights” suspects, Jesse Jackson and Al “$1.5 Million in Back Taxes” Sharpton, aka Al “Close This City” Sharpton, to get cover treatment, and they do, a couple of times each (all graphics are clickable; each will open in a separate window):

Jackson’s solo appearance, found in the June 25, 2006 TUCC bulletin, is in the June 2006 issue. Sharpton’s solo, found in the October 12, 2006 bulletin, is in the October 2006 issue. Each appears in a mini-pantheon of eight people, one of whom is Wright, in the November-December 2006 double issue, seen in the December 17, 2006 bulletin.

The Wright Pics

Barack Obama’s senior pastor put in quite a few appearances in earlier Trumpet issues (all graphics are clickable; each will open in a separate window):

They would be, from left to right: found in the May 30, 2004 TUCC bulletin, showing two Trumpet issues, presumably from 2004; in the January 30, 2005 bulletin, probably the February 2005 issue; and in the March 20, 2005 bulletin, probably the April 2005 issue.

Other Recognizables (all graphics are clickable; each will open in a separate window)

From left to right, then top to bottom, they are:

• Former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley (September 11, 2005 bulletin; probably September 2005 Trumpet).
• The rapper-activist “Common” (bulletin and Trumpet dates to be determined), who also appears in the “Legacy Lives On” pantheon noted earlier.
• Now-indicted and current Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (August 12, 2007 bulletin, in what is probably either the August or September 2007 issue).
• Father Michael Pfleger, a “Catholic” priest on Chicago’s South Side who has gained a bit of national notoriety for his strident, celebratory defense of Wright (July 8, 2007 bulletin, in a midyear double-cover double Trumpet issue).
• New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (September 24, 2006 bulletin, in a Summer 2006 double-cover double issue, probably July-August) — a natural selection for the Katrina-obsessed Wright.

* * * * * * *

These are the people I recognized, from my perspective, as either controversial in and of themselves, or who are well-known politicians. There are many others I have not previously heard of, or who, while recognizable, appear to be relatively non-controversial. I suppose readers can decide that if/when I finish compiling what I know of the Trumpet cover chronology.

If we are to believe Barack Obama, he and his wife have been oblivious to all of this. No. Way.

For what it’s worth, it appears that Trumpet Newsmagazine stopped advertising in the TUCC bulletin just before or just after the end of 2007, which explains why I have no information about who has graced the covers of the magazine’s 2008 issues.

Below last night’s Obama breakdown in West Virginia, using two sets of assumptions:
- African American turnout that is 5% of the total, with 90% voting for Obama (same % as NC last week).
- African American turnout that is 6% of the total, with 90.5% voting for Obama (reported average of IN and NC last week).

If this isn’t the most severe shellacking an allegedly presumptive presidential nominee of a major party has received in all of American history, I want to see what is.

Virtually-final results are at ABC for West Virginia, Indiana, and North Carolina.

Now, here is how Indiana and North Carolina turned out just one week ago:

In South Carolina in January, Obama swept every demographic except white women.

I would suggest there’s just a wee bit of a trend here.

PRECEDING POST:
- May 12 — Attention Stanley Kurtz Re Obama, Wright, Trumpet: I’ve Got You Covered
FOLLOW-UP POST:
- May 14 — Trumpet Newsmagazine: Cover Pic Highlights (Farrakhan, Sharpton, Jackson, Others)

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Stanley Kurtz of the Weekly Standard has done yet more of the investigative work into Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), and Barack Obama that the not merely fawning, but moaning and ogling press (originally on CNN; link is to YouTube; HT Michelle Malkin) won’t do.

I have been arguing for weeks that “it seems inconceivable” that Obama would never have looked at the contents of TUCC’s weekly church bulletins. Kurtz gets to the same place in his review of the issues of Trumpet Newsmagazine that he could get his hands on.

Kurtz reports that he obtained the 2006 issues of Trumpet, “from the first nationally distributed issue in March to the November/December double issue.” In “Jeremiah Wright’s ‘Trumpet,’” Kurtz reaches the only conclusion anyone still left thinking, instead of swooning, can reach (bolds are mine):

To the question of the moment–What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?–I answer, Obama knew everything, and he’s known it for ages. Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright’s disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor’s political radicalism. A careful reading of nearly a year’s worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright’s glossy national “lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious,” makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise.

Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a “church newspaper”–primarily for his own congregation, one gathers–to “preach a message of social justice to those who might not hear it in worship service.” So Obama’s presence at sermons is not the only measure of his knowledge of Wright’s views. Glance through even a single issue of Trumpet, and Wright’s radical politics are everywhere–in the pictures, the headlines, the highlighted quotations, and above all in the articles themselves. It seems inconceivable that, in 20 years, Obama would never have picked up a copy of Trumpet. In fact, Obama himself graced the cover at least once (although efforts to obtain that issue from the publisher or Obama’s interview with the magazine from his campaign were unsuccessful).

….. There can be no mistaking it. What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it? Everything. Always.

As would be expected of a preacher skilled at conveying his message, Wright has long been a multimedia purveyor of his radical “Black Liberation” theology and politics. That Trumpet has been yet another extension of those efforts should surprise absolutely no one.

As also might be expected in a slicker, more expensive production, Kurtz clearly documents that Wright’s Trumpet rhetoric is in some respects even more strident and radical than what we’ve seen in his videotaped sermons, and in the rants of Wright and others in TUCC’s weekly bulletins.

Though he doesn’t identify its title, Kurtz refers frequently to a Wright-authored opinion piece (”Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead!”) in Trumpet’s May 2006 issue to exemplify that stridency and radicalism. That very article happens to be the one Trumpet item I have been able to obtain in my search efforts. I have uploaded it to my host (first and second pages; third page; OR click on mini-pics below; images will open in separate windows) for fair use and discussion purposes:

Among the choice items you will see, some of which Kurtz also excerpted in part or full, are these (items do not appear in the same order as in original):

• “(There can be no such thing as black racism because) “Africans do not control the military, the police, the legal structure or any of the means to enforce their race prejudice.”
• “White supremacy undergirds the thought, the ideology, the theology, the sociology, the legal structure, the educational system, the healthcare system, and the entire reality of the United States of America and South Africa!”
• “Hurricane Katrina gave us some important images that are analogous to the future that our children have to learn how to navigate. When the levees in Louisiana broke alligators, crocodiles and piranha swam freely through what used to be the streets of New Orleans. That is an analogy that we need to drum into the heads of our African American children (and indeed, all children!).
          In the flood waters of white supremacy that our children have to negotiate economically, educationally, culturally, socially and spiritually, there are not only sharks in those waters, there are also crocodiles, alligators and piranha!”
• “Educating our children to the reality of white supremacy becomes crucial for African Americans and for all Americans. Educating our children is a term that I use pointedly. I do not mean “training” our children. That is a part of our problem now. We have trained our children and not educated them!”
• “We need to educate our children about the white supremacist’s foundations of the educational system, the educational philosophy and the very curricula that immerses them in a culture of white supremacy from kindergarten through graduate school!”

Readers will want to know that, at least at that time, Wright had grand plans for meeting the education “need” he identified in the last of the excerpted items above:

We are on the verge of launching our African-centered Christian school. The dream of that school, which we articulated in 1979, was built on hope. That hope still lives. That school has to have at its core an understanding and assessment of white supremacy as we deconstruct that reality to help our children become all that God created them to be when God made them in God’s own image.

I do not know whether TUCC has opened the school Wright said was “on the verge” of opening, or, if it has opened, whether Barack Obama’s daughters, Malia and Natasha, have ever attended.

I do not have the missing covers to which Kurtz refers, but as I noted Monday, I have three examples of the those covers as they were presented in related TUCC church bulletins (each opens in a new window here [May 2007; Obama alone on cover], here [roughly Jan. 2005; Obama and Wright on cover], and here [roughly March 2006; Obama is in a pantheon of roughly 15 civil-rights “leaders,” many historical, two of whom include Wright and Louis Farrakhan]).

As Kurtz concluded, “What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it? Everything. Always.”

When is someone in the traveling press going stop ogling long enough to call Barack and Michelle Obama out for the poison they have at best acquiesced to, or at worst bought into, for two decades?

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ADDENDUM: Still to come — interesting others who have graced the cover of Trumpet.

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Previous Related Posts:
- May 12 — Attention Stanley Kurtz, Re Obama, Wright, Trumpet: I’ve Got You Covered
- May 5 — The Obamas and the TUCC Bulletins — A May 5 Series:
— May 5 — Selected Quotes from Others in the Wright - TUCC Bulletins
— May 5 — MORE Selected History and Economics Lessons from the Wright-TUCC Bulletins
— May 5 — Selected History and Economics Lessons from the Wright-TUCC Bulletins
— May 5 — The TUCC Bulletins: ‘European Dominance’ and the Church’s Black-Power Roots
- May 1 — Obama Bulletin Blowback: Wright’s Stated and Sanctioned Equations of US War Efforts with Terrorism Are Nothing New, and Have Been Frequent
- April 18 — Obama’s Ongoing Nightmare: Wright’s Rants, Church Bulletin Bombshells, and More
- April 17 — Hillary Clinton Channels March BizzyBlog Wright-TUCC Bulletin Post
- April 15 – Per Rev. Wright: Jefferson a Pedophile AND Rapist, Washington Also Fathered a Slave Child
- April 8 — The Objectively Unfit Barack Obama
- March 26 — Another Bulletin Bomb from Obama’s Pastor, Plus Helpful Campaign Assistance from BizzyBlog
- March 24 — JPost Picks up Obama Condemnation of TUCC Bulletin’s Hamas Column
- March 21 — Obama (Shhh) Blasts Hamas Op-Ed in Church Bulletin, Silent on Other Bulletin Items
- March 21 — Did The New Republic Out Obama As a TUCC Bulletin Reader in March 2007?
- March 20 — Church Bulletin Bonus: Omid Safi and the Progressive Muslim Union (PMU)
- March 17 — TUCC’s Church Bulletins from July 2007 Probably Make Whether Obama Was Present on July 22 Irrelevant