Once upon a time, free cigarettes were handed out at Congressional Black Caucus events and Rep. Edolphus Towns was referred to as "Marlboro Man" as a nod to his campaign contributions from Big Tobacco. None of this goes on anymore, but the CBC still has a complicated relationship with the tobacco industry, which makes the recent flavored-cigarette ban a sticky problem. Many think that the bill, which bans all flavored cigarettes except for menthols, which are disproportionately smoked by blacks, has racial implications. It's causing a rift in a CBC already divided over the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton drama.

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The French Parliament is on its way to passing an unprecedented bill that recommends fines and prison sentences for people — like proprietors of those hideous and sad "pro-ana" Web sites — who promote and encourage "extreme thinness." The sentiment behind the bill is valid — if you've ever visited one of these sites, which are basically dedicated to teaching teenage girls how to starve themselves, you'd agree that they're bad. But anorexia was thriving long before the internet came into existence and long before models and actresses started looking more like dental floss than humans. As an American and an editor of an opinion-based Web site, I have a hard time condoning the censorship and an even harder time understanding how it is even possible to legislate a thing like this. And while the bill seems to be geared toward pro-ana sites, the wording suggests that anyone, including people in the fashion industry, that promotes an unhealthy level of thinness applies. It's a fact that young women need better messages about body image from the media, I'm just not sure jail time is the way to make that happen.

• Australia's not a racist country. The government would just prefer that Africans not live there. [Reuters]

• When bored, reporters at the New York Times might fabricate a rap beef. [Idolator]

• More black male teachers are needed in South Carolina and, well, everywhere else in the country, I would bet. [WLTX]

• A task force is meeting in Atlanta today to discuss a proposed law banning sagging pants. Good luck making this one stick, guys. [AJC]

• Grambling State University Administrators are forcing the student paper to remove images of an elementary schooler with a noose around her neck as part of a really poorly planned racism lesson. [SPLC]

A new bill is advancing smoothly through the House and Senate, because any politician that objected to it would look like an ass. The self-explanatory Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act would allow for $100 million to be set aside to create a special unit in the Justice Department devoted solely to Civil Rights-era cold cases.

[The bill] would establish a division of FBI agents and federal prosecutors who would focus strictly on the racially motivated slayings.

On Tuesday, the widows of murdered NAACP field officer Medgar Evers and civil rights worker Michael Schwerner told a House panel that Congress must act quickly to resolve these cases before memories and evidence fade even more.

"It would speak not only to the family members and survivors but to the nation as a whole, that these people's lives were not in vain," said Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams.

This bill is timely, considering a 71-year-old man was convicted last week for kidnapping and conspiracy in the murder of two black teenagers in the 1960s, and the state trooper who killed a man during the riot that caused the infamous Selma march was indicted recently. I suspect a bunch of old white men below the Mason-Dixon line are shaking in their orthopedic shoes.

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Twista's an unlikely rapper to get into the political game or any game for that matter. He's pretty low key. Who knew he had a weekly column in RedEye, the Chicago Tribune's free newspaper? Yesterday, he decried Bush's veto of the Iraq spending bill and aligned himself with Rosie O'Donnell. A complicated guy, this Twista.

President Bush just vetoed a bill that would bring the troops home. I feel like he was bogus for vetoing that bill.

He said he was gonna do it but he finally actually did it. I want to tell people to write, call, or come up with some way to give suggestions to help say something to effect our troops coming home.

We need to say something effective to bring our troops back home. We have troops dying every day and I think it's time that they come back home to the people they care about. I wanna know what you all think we can do to help bring the troops home because something needs to be done.

There are two sides to the situation in Iraq but I kind of feel the way Rosie O'Donnell feels: They didn't attack us so why should we have to attack them? Sometimes I don't know what to think.

We don't either, Twista.

[RedEye via Vibe]