Source: Shutterstock

Relationships can be tough. Realizing who to take that next step and build a lasting marriage with can be even tougher. We women want our prince charming and we want him to need us as much as we need him. And in this era, needs aren’t based around the emotional or physical so much as the cha-ching! I was at a get-together with a few of my girlfriends the other night and each of them made a list of the 5 things the man they’d marry needs to have: A good job and money were the top 2 things on each list.

Now let me be the first to say a woman should look for a goal-orientated man with something to offer, but I have to be honest, only three out of the seven friends who asked for this had a decent job/career of their own. The others? Well let’s just say they’re still trying to find themselves. Me, on the other hand, I’ve been on the opposite end of the spectrum, involved in more than one situation where my contribution to a man was way more than his contribution to me.

So where can we find the balance ladies? How can we look for prince charming without putting too much significance on his pockets? Or be an independent woman without playing someone’s mama? When we don’t want to be gold diggers (although it is important to have a man who can provide) and we don’t want to be sugar mamas (although we want to provide for the one we love as well), where can we find the happy medium? The balance all lies in building together, not what you came into the relationship with but what you  both plan to achieve in the union. Here are a few inspiring couples who show us just where the healthy balance lies:

Source: WENN

It’s no secret that Dr. Cornel West doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with President Barack Obama, nor does he have any qualms about expressing his indifference. During a recent panel discussion appearing on C-SPAN, which explored poverty in the United States, Dr. West touched on his disapproval of President Obama being sworn in for his second term using the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Bible. It appears that West feels that the President’s use of the Bible served as a moment of “political calculation”.

“When I got the news that my dear brother, Barack Obama, President Obama, was going to put his hand on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Bible, I got upset. I got upset because you don’t play with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and you don’t play with his people. By ‘his people’ I mean people of good conscience, fundamentally committed to peace, and truth, and justice; and especially the Black tradition that produced it.”

“All of the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing a Martin Luther King Jr. generated a brother of such high decency and dignity that you don’t use his prophetic fire for a moment of presidential pageantry without understanding the challenge he represents to all of those in power, no matter what color they are.”

Dr. West went on to express that the symbolic moment was “personal” for him because it tapped into the tradition that he came out of. He also urged his audience to question what Dr. King would think of the state that our society is in and how our government is currently being run under the advisement of President Obama, which he believes is in opposition of MLK’s principles and beliefs. He closed his statement by expressing that he does not hate Obama, he simply loves “the tradition that produced Martin Luther King Jr.” and refuses to “allow it in any way to be sanitized, deodorized and sterilized.”

Check out footage of Dr. West’s full statement on the following page. Do you agree or disagree with his stance? 

The 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama
(Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com)

If you can’t make it to the Presidential Inauguration, tune into BET. BET and CENTRIC With LIVE BET will feature Inauguration news and MLK dedicated specials. This special programming began over the weekend with airings of films like Queen and Roots, and today the cable network will air live coverage of the 57th Presidential Inauguration of President Barack Obama titled “From King to President: America Celebrates” that starts at 11am ET.

According to a press release, BET News will provide extensive on-air and online coverage of the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, as well as celebrate the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Award-winning journalists Ed Gordon and Cynne Simpson will anchor coverage of the Inauguration and will include a discussion with renowned civil rights activists, political pundits and pop culture experts from the roof of the Newseum in Washington, DC.

BET News will also be on the spot with contributors reporting from the U.S. Capitol and along the Inauguration parade. The coverage will also include interviews from the inauguration with Civil Rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams, the first laywoman to give an invocation at a presidential inauguration; national African American vote director for Obama for America, Stefanie Brown James; Commander in Chic author Mikki Taylor; and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s daughter Elder Bernice A. King.

It doesn’t stop there. BET Networks will also host an Inaugural Ball on Monday, January 21 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

If you’re looking to channel surf throughout the day, there will be no shortage of inauguration coverage. A quick look at the dial shows that CBS and NBC along with CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and a number of other stations will also be airing inauguration coverage throughout the day.

A tweet from @BarackObama posted at 11:16 ET last night with the caption “Four more years.” Mashable says it’s the most retweeted post of all time, more than 500,000 times.

Yes! Yes! Yesssss! President Barack Obama for four more years.

While we can definitely take some time to revel in this fantastic news, the world keeps on spinning and the economy needs to be top-of-mind. Already, there have been some positive reactions to Obama’s win, but The Wall Street Journal reports that it’s nothing to write home about.

“[T]hese moves so far have been muted, partly due to the focus now turning to a divided Congress and the need to avert a ‘fiscal cliff’ of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes which could kick-in in January,” MarketBeat writes. “The broader global economy also remains in the doldrums, not least because the euro-zone crisis continues to rumble on with Greece facing a key parliamentary vote Wednesday evening that could help determine whether the cash-strapped country gets its next installment of bailout money.”

Speaking this morning on the Today show, Jim Cramer also cited the “fiscal cliff” as a reason why the economic reaction won’t be stronger. “There’s not a lot of certainty right now,” host Savannah Guthrie said. (Full clip below.)

With tax increases and budget cuts looming come January 1, there needs to be compromise between the parties for work to get done. It’s that inability to work together that has indicators showing that stocks will open lower this morning. CNN is saying right now that the markets are going to give back the gains from yesterday, saying the perception of the same old-same old in government is causing concern. Besides the issues overseas and the fiscal cliff, the ongoing “under-performance” (to use Cramer’s word) caused by the threat of regulation and taxes has Wall Street worried.

“Investors seem to be looking past the hard-fought Obama win and focusing on the virtual status quo that remains in Congress, where Republicans retain control, and the Senate, in which the Democrats still have a slim majority, altered little by picking up two seats,” reports USA Today.

But, we can be happy that the economy is on the road to recovery.

“The jobs picture has already been improving gradually. Employers added a solid 171,000 jobs in October. Hiring was also stronger in August and September than first thought,” TIME writes. “…That said, most economists predict the improvement will remain steady but slow.”

Update at 9:35 am: Just minutes into the day’s trading, the Dow is already down 179 points.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

President Obama receiving an honorary degree from Miami Dade County College. Rex Features via AP Images

No surprise here, but college is expensive. The College Board just reported that the average price for tuition, room and board, etc with tax deductions is $12,110 for a public school and $23,840 for a private, nonprofit school. (This was just released about for-profit colleges. LOL.) This year’s increase, according to The New York Times, is smaller than that of years past at three percent. Still, the high cost and tight job market has got a number of media outlets asking if the education is worth the expense. Well one day you or your kid could be President of the US and then all of that education will seem like a great investment.

The folks at Degree Jungle, a site that provides info about online college programs, have pulled together a fun and rather interesting infographic that illustrates just how much it costs to educate a US President (or presidential candidate). Think somewhere around $450K. Wow. Info below.

By Degreejungle.com The Cost to Educate a President

Source: Getty Images

From Hello Beautiful

While the economy, immigration, Libya, job creation and gun control figured prominently in the 2012 U.S. presidential debates, it has been women’s issues-related questions that have prompted lots of attention. The battle for women’s votes has helped to shape each candidate’s platform.

As we quickly approach the homestretch, here’s a look at where Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney stand on women’s health.

Read more at Hello Beautiful

Preparations are being made for tonight’s final Presidential debate in Boca Raton, FL. Image: AP Photo/David Goldman

During a conference call in June, reports a blog called In These Times, Mitt Romney told business owners that he thought it was perfectly fine for them to tell employees who they should vote for.

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections,” he said on the summertime conference call, stressing that there’s nothing illegal about doing so. He waits until the end to throw in the old “whether you support me or Obama” business, but, New York magazine says, there have only been reports of mailings in favor of Romney, including one from the billionaire Republican supporting Koch brothers.

ICYMI, ASG Software Solutions CEO Arthur Allen made news last week for sending an email to his employees saying that people would lose their jobs if they didn’t vote for Romney.

“But I can tell you, if the US re-elects President Obama, our chances of staying independent are slim to none. I am already heavily involved in considering options that make our independence go away, and with that all of our lives would change forever,” the email reads. “If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don’t want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come.”

MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes exclusively received the email and posted it on the network’s website. They tried contacting Allen but got no response.

And over on Gawker, they got an email that Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel sent to his employees. “Obviously, our present government believes that taking my money is the right economic stimulus for this country. The fact is, if I deducted 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here,” Siegel wrote. “If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.” He even signs the thing “your boss.” Oh but he says that, of course, he can’t tell you who to vote for.

To echo the words of New York mag, this is wholly and completely unethical. Between the ongoing voter suppression efforts and these sorts of underhanded shenanigans, every vote is going to count. Tonight’s debate will focus on foreign policy, a debate that even those in the Romney camp say he can’t win, Politico writes.

“Spoiler alert: We got bin Laden,” President Obama said last week. Yes we did Mr. President.

“Aides head into it more confident about winning the race than they did before the first presidential debate, but believing Obama is slightly better positioned in the states that will dictate the outcome,” Politico continues. “The hope inside the campaign is that Romney will emerge in no worse position.”

Given his horrible track record on foreign policy subjects and his tendency to come up with winning one-liners like his “binders full of women,” that could be a tall order.

Image: Anthony Behar/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images)

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Our President, Barack Obama, brought it big-time during last night’s debate. He did it right and we couldn’t be happier. And Mitt Romney? Frustrated, sweaty, wrong and talking crazy talk about women in binders, Mitt Romney went off the rails. And took his manners with him. Was it just us or was he particularly rude last night? To Candy Crowley and the President. We’re listening to CNN right now and the pundits and an audience member from last night both commented on how Romney was over-aggressive to the point of being offensive.

But on to the issues… The men talked about everything from energy policy to taxes, gas prices, the economy, China and jobs. You can watch video from the debate and a full recap here. But the thing that we want to highlight here was the connection that President Obama drew between equal pay, women’s health and the average family’s finances.

In response to a question about equal pay, Romney launched into an evasive speech that never made it clear that the former Governor is in favor of equal pay policies. And then, to prove that he likes women, he made the aforementioned “binders full of women” comment that was not only ridiculous, but said a lot about the way he thinks about the issue. It’s just another talking point that he’ll address with an awkward, unrelated anecdote. And he’s got an actual book (The Atlantic reports on the binders that Romney’s office used to find staffers while he was governor of Massachusetts) that he can pull out and show off when necessary.

“Romney did a good job appointing women to high office in the context of a bipartisan statewide push to get him to do so as a new governor, but a terrible job in finding and promoting women to senior roles in the context of the high-paying private-sector business he built himself. That may be why, by his own admission, his social power network when he came into office led to an all-male pool of job applicants,” reports The Atlantic. Boo.

On the other hand, President Obama drew the connection between the middle class, women’s health and financial well-being. “This is not just a women’s issue,” he said. “This is a family issue. This is a middle-class issue. And that’s why we’ve got to fight for it.” He also noted the increased cases in which women are “breadwinners” for their families. And, of course, he opened with talk of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that he signed into law in 2009. An advisor tells The Huffington Post that Romney was opposed to the law as it made its way through Congress. He still hasn’t voiced support for it.

It’s simply unfair that women make less money than men for the same work. It’s something that we shouldn’t stand for, and the fact that this is an issue that some people have found a way to be opposed to is appalling. But even when you look at the issue in purely dollars-and-cents terms, any political leader who claims to be working towards restoring the middle class without advocating for fair pay when so many women are providers for their families is destined to fail. And when you add health care costs — the cost of medication, ob-gyn services, contraception, the cost of having a baby, and the financial toll it takes when a woman is too sick to work — into the equation, you can clearly see why equal pay and women’s health are critical topics as we continue to climb out of this recession. President Obama laid out his feelings on the issue. Romney did not.

“That’s a pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country,” President Obama rightly added. There’s a great analysis of this segment of the debate on The New York Times.

In the end, Reuters says that President Obama “likely stemmed decline in support among women” while Romney is now doing battle with a damaging Internet meme during these crucial final weeks of the election.

Reuters reports: “‘Any ground that Mitt Romney gained over the last week or week and a half, he lost tonight,’ said Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University.”

Via BindersFullofWomen.Tumblr.com

Source: abcnews.com

From The Grio

President Barack Obama used two words to describe his performance at last week’s debate against Mitt Romney: “too polite.”

The president called into the Tom Joyner Morning Show Wednesday to assess how he did against his Republican challenger and why he didn’t go on the “attack” as some of his supporters would have preferred. The call-in lasted about eight minutes and Obama said that everyone will see “a  little more activity” at the second debate next Tuesday.

Read more at The Grio

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• An Open Letter To Men Suffering From Light-Skinned, Long Hair Syndrome: I’m Not Flattered
• Amending The Girl Code: When Your Friend Gets Married, Are Her Ex-Boos Fair Game?
• That Time An Old White Man Entertained Me With Tales Of Colored People On A Flight
• What Do Men Want? Who Cares…
• Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Why Do Fools Fall In Love”
• C’Mon Now: Black Celebrities That White Folks Mistake For One Another (But They DON’T Look Alike…)
• Damn Mr. Right, I Need Mr. Right Now! 7 Signs You’re Too Thirsty For Someone To Put A Ring On It

Image: Rep. Allen West. Image: AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File

This morning, everyone rejoiced about the latest unemployment numbers, showing that joblessness dropped to 7.8 percent, a 3 1/2-year low. Everyone, that is, but a few crackpot conservatives who are saying that President Obama somehow messed with the numbers to reflect the improved jobs information for political gain.

This conspiracy started with former GE CEO Jack Welch, who tweeted the statement below:

Welch was quickly joined by people like Rep. Allen West (R, FL, flat top); Generation Operation president and quote source for our story this morning, Paul Conway (we thought you were cool!); Laura Ingraham, who called the numbers “propaganda” in a tweet; and Stuart Varney on Fox News.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has gone on CNBC today to call the allegations “ludicrous.” And The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein points out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which collects this information, was specifically set up to avoid the kind of scheming that these crazies are spouting off about. “We’ve hit that moment in the election when people begin to lose their minds,” he writes. True words Ezra Klein.

For his part, Mitt Romney said, ““This is not what a real recovery looks like.” He goes on to say in his statement, “If not for all the people who have simply dropped out of the labor force, the real unemployment rate would be closer to 11 percent.”

More importantly, Romney used a Fox News interview on Thursday night to walk back on his comments about the “47 percent.”

“Well, clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right. In this case, I said something that’s just completely wrong,” he now says. “And I absolutely believe, however, that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent and that’s been demonstrated throughout my life.” Mmm… no you haven’t actually Mr. Romney. Remember that time back in February when you told Soledad O’Brien, “I’m not concerned about the very poor — we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.” He also said in that same interview that he doesn’t care about the very rich either. He also put his dog on the roof of his car, so if you count pets in that 100 percent, you have even more proof of his not caring.