America's most infamous unwanted guests showed up (this time, invited) this morning on NBC's "Today Show." Michaele and Tareq Salahi told host Matt Lauer they were indeed told they could come to a White House state dinner last week. "We were invited. [We're] not crashers," insisted Michaele. Her husband said the couple is cooperating with the Secret Service's investigation in to why they were able to get in without an invitation.

As previously reported, the Virginia couple literally talked their way in to Obama's first state dinner, which was thrown for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, on Nov. 24.

Many within media and political circles have expressed outrage at the lapse in security exposed by the Salahis' stunt. The notion that anyone who has not been cleared by the Secret Service could get close enough to touch President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the same event is frightening.

Updated Dec. 1: Here's a new twist on the saga of Michaele and Tareq Salahi: MyFoxDC.com is reporting that the couple also crashed a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner in September by sneaking in the entrance meant for bus boys and caterers. They had their photos snapped with Sen. Roland Burris, Star Jones, and other luminaries. When they were discovered sitting at a table reserved for someone else, they were given the heave-ho, said a CBCF communications official.

Who knew it would be so easy to crash a White House state dinner?

Throw on a red sari, show up without an invitation, and before you know it, you're shaking hands with the president and posing for photos with the vice president. When it's all done, post the photos on Facebook, and then ask for $500,000 to tell the media how you did it.

At least that's how easy it was for Michaele and Tareq Salahi (shown above with President Barack Obama), former vineyard owners from Virginia who have been angling for a spot on Bravo TV's upcoming reality show "Real Housewives of DC."

They literally talked their way in to Obama's first state dinner, which was thrown for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, on Nov. 24. Oh, and before that they talked their way in to free hair styling for Michaele and a Bravo TV crew to film their preparations for the big night. Both the stylist and Bravo have said they were unaware that the couple had not been invited to the state dinner.

At some point this week, whether it's while preparing the Thanksgiving feast or while picking over a ton of tasty leftovers, you may ask yourself: Do I really need to have more food than I can possibly eat while so many people are going hungry this holiday season?

It's true that in this time of deep recession, more people than ever cannot afford to feed themselves and their families. A new government report (PDF) reveals that the percentage of American households with problems getting enough food during at least part of the year jumped from 11.1 percent in 2007 to 14.6 percent in 2008, with over one-quarter of black households having food access issues in 2008.

So it follows that a number of hungry people are turning to emergency food programs, such as community pantries and food banks, to fill their empty stomachs. Since you probably have so much food right now, wouldn't it make sense for you to donate some of your leftover turkey and trimmings to hungry neighbors through those programs?

If you thought the case of the 8-year-old Liberian girl who was allegedly gang raped in Arizona by four boys couldn't get any worse, it has. According to KTVK-TV in Phoenix, her parents were arrested on Friday, Nov. 20, for child abuse:

Pop quiz: Who was the first U.S. president to bow to an emperor of Japan?

If you said Barack Obama, you guessed wrong. It was Richard Nixon, who in 1971 was depicted in Life magazine bowing to Emperor Hirohito (aka Showa, the leader who reigned in Japan during World War II, when his country was our enemy).

That hasn't stopped some conservatives from criticizing President Obama's deep bow to Hirohito's son, Emperor Akihito, during a visit to the imperial palace in Japan on Nov. 14. They accuse him of being too deferential, as if by trying (albeit awkwardly) to greet the Japanese emperor in the customary way, he was tugging on his forelock and whimpering, "Yassuh, your highness, we Americans are forever in your debt." The fact that he breached protocol by mixing it with a handshake is icing on the cake for his critics.

If you're like me, when you receive gift cards, you're likely to stow them away in your wallet, where they stay largely forgotten until those occasional times when cash flow gets tight. When I finally use one, I rarely remember who gave it to me.

If you're like Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, you use those suckers right away. That's what they're meant for, right?

Not so fast, say prosecutors in Dixon's criminal theft trial, which got under way on Nov. 13. They accuse the city's first female mayor of spending about 60 gift cards, worth roughly $1,500, on herself, when they were intended for needy families at Christmastime.

(Left: Robert Williams joined the 'Rally Against Insurance Corporations' on Sept. 22, 2009 in Miami, FL. Photo credit: Joe Raedle, Getty Images. )

Updated Nov. 8, 2009: Yesterday the House of Representatives voted 220-215 in favor of passing a health care reform bill. However, a similar measure in the Senate faces an uphill battle. Find out below how you can still help get health care reform passed in Congress. The hotline mentioned below will still be in operation.

Despite pessimism by some leaders in Congress, health care reform still has a chance to pass before the year is out. That's why the tea-baggers have been making so much noise this week at the Capitol, where the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a health care reform bill as early as Saturday, Nov. 7. They want to kill the legislation and end any chance of universal health care.

So how about you? Are you willing to let that happen, despite the fact that black people are less likely to have health insurance and on average spend a higher percentage of their income on health care? "Most African Americans and others know someone who has died unnecessarily due to our broken health care system," says NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Jealous. "We need heath care reform that provides access to affordable comprehensive health insurance coverage for all Americans, and that can't be done without a strong public option."

Princeton Professor Cornel West ('Race Matters,' 'Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud') has been known to criticize black leaders for the gulf that can open up between their rhetoric and their actions on behalf of the most vulnerable members of our community.

So of course, when Black Voices got Dr. West in our studio, we had to ask him his thoughts about Rev. Jesse Jackson ("he doesn't like to linger linger, and organize, and mobilize the way King and Abernathy did"), Rev. Al Sharpton ("he's now become almost an insider with the Obama administration"), and Bishop T.D. Jakes ("I used to be very critical of him in terms of moral courage").

What would you say about President Barack Obama appointing a key advisor with the following past:

*As the chief economist of the world's biggest lender to the Third World, reportedly extolled the virtues of dumping toxic waste in developing countries, saying, "I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."

*As the head of a top university, said that innate differences in ability between men and women might help explain why fewer women become professional scientists or engineers.

*As head of that same university, reportedly questioned the scholarship and integrity of one of the nation's most respected and well-known African-American academics.

*While advising a previous president on the economy in the 1990s, warned a government official to stop trying to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives market – the same free-wheeling market that contributed to last autumn's economic meltdown.

Princeton professor Cornel West, the aforementioned black academic and author of the seminal book on American race relations, 'Race Matters,' would say it's "a colossal mistake" for Obama to appoint someone like that to his inner circle of advisors. "When you have that kind of lineage you say, wait a minute it's clear there's a problem regarding the integrity," West told Black Voices in a recent interview (see the video below).

cornel west