Greene County Democrat

Category: Crime

  • Newswire: Congress passes historic Anti-Lynching legislation

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia

    Lynching in a small Southern town


    Sixty-five years after the horrific lynching of teenager Emmett Till, the U.S. House of Representatives have finally passed H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act. The legislation would make lynching a crime under federal law.
    “Today, under the leadership of Representative Bobby Rush (IL-01), and three other Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the House of Representatives finally passed legislation to address the heinous act of lynching by making it a federal crime. The first bill to outlaw lynching was introduced in 1900,” members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote in a statement.
    “Lynching was a brutal, violent, and often savage public spectacle. They were advertised in newspapers, memorialized in postcards, and souvenirs were made from the victims’ remains,” the CBC, which is chaired by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif), added.
    A 1930 editorial in Raleigh News and Observer noted the delight of the audience witnessing a lynching as “Men joked loudly at the sight of the bleeding body; girls giggled as the flies fed on the blood that dripped from the Negro’s nose.”
    “Make no mistake: lynching is domestic terrorism. It is a tool that was used during the 256 years of slavery to terrorize enslaved African Americans and discourage them from rebelling,” Bass said.
    “It was used for almost 100 years after the end of slavery to terrorize free African Americans and discourage them from exercising their rights as citizens. Even today, we hear reports of nooses being left on college campuses and workplaces to threaten and harass Black people,” she stated.
    Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Tim Scott (R-SC) applauded the passage of the bill, which is identical to anti-lynching legislation the three introduced in the Senate last year.
    That legislation unanimously passed the Senate. “Today brings us one step closer to finally reconciling a dark chapter in our nation’s history,” Booker stated in a release. “Lynchings were used to terrorize, marginalize, and oppress black communities – to kill human beings to sow fear and keep black communities in a perpetual state of racial subjugation.”
    He continued:
    “If we do not reckon with this dark past, we cannot move forward. But today we are moving forward. Thanks to the leadership of Rep. Rush, the House has sent a clear, indisputable message that lynching will not be tolerated. It has brought us closer to reckoning with our nation’s history of racialized violence. Now the Senate must again pass this bill to ensure that it finally becomes law.”
    Harris called lynchings racially-motivated acts of violence and terror that represent a dark and despicable chapter of our nation’s history. “They were acts against people who should have received justice but did not. With this bill, we can change that by explicitly criminalizing lynching under federal law,” noted Harris, who suspended her presidential campaign late last year.
    “I applaud Congressman Rush and the House of Representatives for speaking the truth about our past and making it clear that these acts must never happen again without serious and swift consequence and accountability. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this bill’s passage,” she said.
    Scott added that it’s essential to show that hate will not win while Rush compared lynching to the French use of the guillotine, the Roman Empire’s use of crucifixion, and the British use of drawing and quartering as a tool of terrorism.
    “And, for too long now, a federal law against lynching has remained conspicuously silent,” Rush noted. “Today, we will send a strong message that violence – and race-based violence, in particular – has no place in American society. I am immensely grateful to Senators Harris, Booker, and Scott for working with my office on this landmark piece of legislation, and I look forward to it being quickly passed in the Senate and immediately sent to the President to be signed into law.”
    Bass said the last known lynching was as recent as 25 years ago and only then, for the first time in the nation’s history, was the perpetrator convicted and executed. “This is an awful part of our history, but it is our history – our American history – and it is important for us to all know and remember it, especially now that we are facing a resurgence of hate crimes in America under the presidency of Donald J. Trump,” Bass stated.
    “Now there is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to document the known history of lynching and the many reasons why Black people were lynched, such as for making eye contact with a white person, not moving to the other side of the street, or spitting in public,” she said.
    Further, Bass added that the bill makes “a long-overdue change to our laws by finally addressing the issue of lynching for the thousands of African Americans who suffered this heinous fate and the countless more we’ll never know.”

  • Newswire: Outgoing Mississippi Governor says state faces ‘1,000 years of darkness’ if Black Man (Mike Espy) is elected U. S. Senator

    Mike Espy and former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent
    @StacyBrownMedia


    Fifty-two years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and 55 years after Jim Crow, Mississippi is burning again.
    Phil Bryant, the now-former governor of Mississippi – a state that was one of the flashpoints of the civil rights movement, and a haven for the Ku Klux Klan – has sparked understandable outrage after tweeting a racist claim that if the Magnolia State elects its first Black senator, there would be 1,000 years of darkness.
    “I intend to work for @cindyhydesmith as if the fate of America depended on her single election,” Gov. Phil Bryant tweeted on January 2. “If Mike Espy and the liberal Democrats gain the Senate, we will take that first step into a thousand years of darkness.”
    Bryant, a Republican, left office on January 14 after serving two terms.
    Espy lost to Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s special U.S. Senate runoff election in 2018. After announcing that he was running again this year, Espy said he could win by building a diverse coalition of voters.
    With a victory, Espy would become Mississippi’s first Black senator in more than 139 years.
    “We’re going after everybody — white, black, Democrat, persuadable Republican, persuadable moderates and those in the middle,” Espy told the AP in November 2019.
    “But I know where they are now. I’m not flying blind.” During his first campaign against Hyde-Smith, a video surfaced showing her praising a supporter by saying she’d attend a “public hanging” if he invited her.
    Bryant rekindled those sentiments with his tweet, setting social media ablaze with anger.
    Many pointed out the state’s history of racism and recent and ongoing problems at Parchman Prison, a former plantation that housed hundreds of slaves and whose population includes more than 60 percent Blacks; the state’s debtor’s prison that punishes mostly African Americans; and a recent state Supreme Court decision to affirm a 12-year prison sentence for a Black man who turned over a cell phone to a corrections officer.
    “Darkness follows Mississippi Gov Phil Bryant around,” feminist Paula Cain wrote on Twitter. “Every time that old white man opens his racist, uneducated mouth — darkness flows out.
    Alvon Phillips, a medical technician, said the comments are in line with what the state represents. “Anyone can clearly see how racist and prejudiced this Mississippi governor is and what race of people he truly represents; the only race whose interest he cares to advance,” Phillips stated. “Now, you can understand why Mississippi is last in everything. Last in education, wages, and development.”
    Journalist Joe Jurado analyzed Bryant’s comments in a January 9 article for The Root.
    “Mississippi has a very long and very violent history of racism: 600 black people were lynched between 1877 to 1950, the most of any state,” Jurado recalled.
    “Up until 2017, the state still had predominately segregated schools. This makes it all the more surprising than the governor believes Mike Espy being elected to the Senate would open the doors of Guf and bring about the fourth impact,” Jurado stated. “We’re talking about the same man who, after Hyde-Smith came under fire for her lynching comments, went on a podium and compared Black women getting abortions to genocide. Hyperbolic racism just seems to be this dude’s go-to.”
    In a June 1964 profile, The New York Times called Mississippi “the most segregated state, and noted that, “Through most of the state’s history, the White supremacists have been able to control government at the local and state levels.”
    A 2019 lawsuit filed by three Black residents challenged Mississippi’s requirement that candidates running for statewide office must win both a majority of the popular vote and at least 62 of 122 state House of Representatives districts. The law, which was put into place in 1890 when White politicians openly sought to suppress the Black vote, states that no candidate fulfills both requirements, the House then decides a statewide election, and representatives aren’t required to vote along with their districts. “This racist electoral scheme achieved, and continues to achieve, the framers’ goals by tying the statewide election process to the power structure of the House,” the plaintiffs stated in the lawsuit.
    “So long as white Mississippians controlled the House, they would also control the elections of statewide officials.”
    In an op-ed about Mississippi for The Atlantic late last year, Jesmyn Ward, an author who teaches creative writing at Tulane University, said racism makes itself known very vocal and confrontational ways.
    “But perhaps the most tragic manifestation of racist sentiment in Mississippi is silent. Built into the very bones of this place. My state starves its people and, in doing so, actively resists Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy,” Ward stated.
    “Our Republican lawmakers have made an effort to undercut programs that serve the poor, maybe because so many people of color in Mississippi live in poverty and depend on social programs for help.”

  • Beware of Social Security Phone Scam

    Beware of Social Security Phone Scams

  • 55th Bridge Crossing Jubilee to be held in Selma February 27 to March 1, 2020

    Stacey Abrams, Georgia Voting Rights activist, Martin Luther King III and family, Nobel Prize laureate, Leymah Gobwee of Liberia among honorees at Sunday’s Unity Breakfast


    The 55th Bridge Crossing Jubilee, to commemorate the 1965 ‘Bloody Sunday March’ for voting rights will be held in Selma from Thursday, February 27 to Sunday March 1, 2020.
    This is the largest national event to celebrate voting and civil rights.
    The Jubilee will consist of church services, workshops on civil rights related issues, a street festival, breakfasts, dinners, a parade, golf tournament and other events, culminating in Sunday afternoon’s re-enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights March, from Brown’s Chapel AME Church across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
    A key part of the program is the Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast at Wallace Community College Selma on Sunday, March 1st, which begins at 7:30 a.m. and opens the commemoration of Bloody Sunday.
    Several persons are slated to receive the Martin and Coretta King Unity Award at the breakfast and will speak, among them are Stacey Abrams of Georgia, Martin Luther King III, his wife Arndrea Waters King and their 11-year-old daughter Yolanda Renee King, Leymah Gobwee of Liberia and Columba Toure of Senegal.
    “Stacey Abrams was the first Black woman in the nation to win major party’s nomination for governor, and she came very close to being elected the governor of Georgia, a Deep South state. Abrams is also one of the foremost leaders in the country in voter registration and voter participation and is a strong contender for Vice President in this year’s presidential election,” said Hank Sanders, co-founder of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and the Selma-to-Montgomery March Foundation. 
     Foundation and President of Wallace Community College Selma, said: “Leader Abrams is one of the speakers most in demand across the nation. She always has something powerful and worthwhile to share. We look forward to hearing her strong vision for our nation on March 1st in Selma.” 
    “Martin Luther King, III, his wife, Arndrea Waters King and their daughter, Yolanda Renee King have been deeply involved in Civil Rights, the Voting Rights struggle and human rights for a lifetime. The three members of the King family, all became very active and effective in the struggle for justice for all from very young ages. Martin Luther King, III, has attended almost all of the Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfasts since the very beginning,” according to Hank Sanders.
    Noble Peace Prize Recipient Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and international leader Coumba Toure of Senegal will be honored at the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast in Selma on Sunday, March 1st, at Wallace Community College Selma. Leymah Gbowee will receive the inaugural International Peace and Justice Award, and Coumba Toure will receive the International Unity Award. 
    Gbowee, the 2020 inaugural Peace and Justice Award recipient, was one of three women awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”
    Dr. James Mitchell, Chair of the Selma-to-Montgomery March Foundation and President of Wallace Community College Selma (WCCS), said: “Leymah Gbowee organized women in her native Liberia to end Liberia’s civil war. Her fearless, remarkable and creative efforts and women-led movement transformed Liberia and gave the Liberian people a future that had been ripped from them through civil war, rape and other violence and oppression. The power of her work, vision and courage cannot be overstated.” 
    Working across religious and ethnic lines in Liberia, Gbowee led thousands of Christian and Muslim women in praying and in working non-violently for peace, using Muslim and Christian prayers. They held daily nonviolent demonstrations and sit-ins in defiance of orders from the tyrannical Liberian President at that time, Charles Taylor. Their efforts succeeded in ending 14 years of war and removing Taylor from office in 2003.
    Gbowee’s powerful memoir is Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, and she is also the subject of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Gbowee’s influential work and service across Africa includes her being Founder and President of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa based in Monrovia, Liberia, which provides educational and leadership opportunities to girls, women and the youth in Liberia. She has served as the Executive Director of the Ghana-based Women Peace and Security Network Africa, which supports women’s capacity to prevent, avert, and end conflicts in West Africa and has also served as the commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 
     Coumba Toure, the 2020 International Unity Award recipient, has worked for more than two decades to promote social change in West Africa. She is Coordinator for Africans Rising for peace, justice and dignity based in Dakar, Senegal. Hank Sanders, co-founder of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and the Selma-to-Montgomery March Foundation said: “Coumba Toure has dedicated her life to serving others and improving the lives of women, children and all people of all ages from West Africa to right here in Selma. Much of her work focuses on positive change in the nations of West Africa, and her service also reaches across the world to include helping young people through the Institute for Popular Education in Mali, the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement in Selma and more.” 
    More information on all of the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee events and tickets are available through the website: http://www.selmajubilee.com

  • Alabama New South Alliance endorses local Greene County candidates

    Arnelia ‘Shay’ Johnson
    William Morgan
    Mary Edwards Otieno

    On Sunday, February 9, 2020 members of the Greene County Alabama New South Alliance met to screen and endorse local candidates for the March 3rd primary. There are several local contested races on the ballot along with the Democratic Party Presidential choice, Congressional races and some statewide positions.
    The Alabama New South Alliance screens local candidates based on several criteria including: a. qualifications/experience, b. Community Involvement, c. Compatibility with ANSA Platform, d. Responsiveness to Questions and e. Electability. All candidates were invited to attend the screening.
    For Greene County Revenue Commissioner, both candidates, incumbent Barbara McShan and challenger Arnelia ‘Shay’ Johnson appeared and were screened. They answered questions about their experience, qualifications, plans and community involvement. Arnelia ‘Shay’ Johnson received the endorsement in a close vote.
    For Greene County Board of Education – District 3, William Morgan, incumbent came for the screening and answered questions.
    His opponent, Veronica Richardson, did not attend the screening. ANSA endorsed William Morgan.
    For Greene County Board of Education – District 5, incumbent Board member, Carrie Dancy did not attend the screening. Her opponent, Mary Edwards Otieno was screened and received the ANSA endorsement.
    The ANSA will have sample ballots available next week and at the polls on Election Day to help people to make their choices.
    Statewide candidates endorsed by ANSA include: Joe Biden for President, Laura Casey for Chair of the Alabama Public Service Commission, Billie Jean Young – State School Board-District 5 and Congressional candidates where there is opposition.
    ANSA also urged a ‘No’ vote on Statewide Amendment No. 1 which provides for appointment of the State School Board by the Governor in place of the current system of election by districts.
    Absentee ballots, including early walk-in voting, are available from the Circuit Clerk’s office in the Greene County Courthouse.

  • Newswire: New hurdle for Nigerians seeking U. S. visas to settle here

    Feb. 3, 2020 (GIN) – She’s your pediatrician. He’s your surgeon. She’s a civil engineer. He has a doctorate. She’s an Emmy Award winner. He was a Chicago Bear.
    They’re Nigerian-Americans who have set down roots in Dallas, Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, Phoenix and Houston – the latter of which has the largest Nigerian population outside Brazil and Africa. They’re the largest group among African immigrants in the U.S. – about 327,000. They’re a tiny portion of the U.S. population, but they rank as the most successful ethnic group in the U.S.
    Yet, on the eve of Black History month, the President callously expanded a travel ban that effectively bars Nigerians from obtaining visas to immigrate here permanently. The new restrictions will not apply to tourist, business, or other nonimmigrant travel. But for the large Nigerian diaspora in the US, the policy will be devastating to a community with deep family and cultural ties to their home country.
    Nigerians expressed disbelief and anger after the Trump administration announced the policy, which takes effect Feb. 21. The decision affects Nigeria Eritrea, Sudan, and Tanzania as well as Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar. Additionally, immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania will be excluded from the diversity visa lottery, which grants green cards to as many as 50,000 people every year.

    Many Nigerians wondered why they specifically were targeted, when many other countries might pose similar security threats. Amaha Kassa, head of African Communities Together, which advocates for African immigrants and their families, told reporters that at the group’s latest meeting in New York City, dozens of Nigerians were asking one question: “Why single us out?”
    Immigrant advocates say it’s based on discriminatory motivations.
    For Okorafor Chimedu, a 29-year-old teacher in Warri, Nigeria, with a university degree and relatives already in the United States, his chances now to join them appear slim.
    “I hope the two nations will rectify their differences soon so that the ban can be lifted,” he said to a reporter. “We need each other to progress in this world. No man is an island of his own.”
    Omar Jadwat of the ACLU’s Immigrant Rights Project suggested the ban was imposed because the excluded countries don’t share enough information so that (we) can vet their citizens when they arrive.
    The so-called “Muslim ban,” already affects citizens from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela and North Korea.
    Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, sharply disputed the U.S. move.
    “In our view, (the ban) was not well thought out but based largely on negative narratives spread by naysayers. I know we are working very well with our neighbors, the EU and the U.S. to ensure that terrorism is addressed.”
    “Our advice to the U.S. is that it should have a rethink on the issue because any travel ban is bound to affect investment and growth in the country and those who will be affected are the most vulnerable people in Nigeria.”
    In a separate development, China has halted the issuance of visas to Nigerians citing their effort to control the spread of the coronavirus in the Asian country.

  • Newswire : New York District Attorney re-opens investigation into the assassination of Malcolm X

    By Frederick H. Lowe, BlackmansStreet.Today

    Malcolm X

    Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney, has agreed to review the conviction of Muhammad Abdul Aziz, who was arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Malcolm X although no physical evidence linked Aziz to the assassination.
    The Innocence Project, which is based in New York City, is working with the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit and Civil Rights Attorney David B. Shanies to re-investigate Aziz’s 1966 conviction.
    The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office decided to re-investigate the assassination following the broadcast of the seven-part Netflix documentary “Who Killed Malcolm X” by historian Abdur-Rahman Muhammad and others.
    The documentary covers much of what has already been written in “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. The documentary also examines in detail the split between Malcolm X and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, head of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam.
    It is augmented with black and white photographs. In addition, there are black and white and color news clips of Malcolm X, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad speaking about their growing difficulties with each other that led to Malcolm X leaving the Nation of Islam. The documentary also interviewed current and former members of the Nation of Islam and close associates of Malcolm X.
    The split and Malcolm’s death accomplished what J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, and the New York City police and some members of the Nation of Islam wanted because they feared and were envious of Malcolm X’s oratorical skills and his organizing ability, according to the documentary.
    The documentary opens with Malcolm X’s very public assassination in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom before a large audience of supporters.
    Malcolm X is carried from the Audubon Ballroom where he was fatally shot.
    Moments after Malcolm X took the stage at 3:30 p.m. on February 21, 1965, a team of five gunmen began shooting, terrifying the men and women who scrambled for cover knocking over chairs in the ballroom to escape.
    New York City police quickly arrested Azziz (then known as Norman 3X Butler), Mujahid Abul Halim (then known as Talmadge Hayer and Thomas Hagan) and Khalil Islam(then known as Thomas 15X Johnson) for the murder.
    Halim admitted to participating in the assassination. Malcolm X’s bodyguards shot him in the leg, captured and beat him in the Audubon until police rescued him.
    He has always said Aziz and Islam had nothing to do with the killing. Islam died in 2009. Aziz who is 81 is still trying to clear his name. A former member of the U.S. Navy, he was paroled in 1985.
    “I just want to testify that Butler [Aziz] and Johnson [Islam] had nothing to do with it … I was there, I know what happened and I know the people who were there,” Halim said.
    At the time of Malcolm X’s murder, Aziz was a patient in a nursing home where he was being treated for recent leg injuries. A physician who treated testified in Aziz’s defense.
    “We are grateful that District Attorney Vance quickly agreed to conduct a review of the conviction of Muhammad Aziz. Given the historical importance of this case and the fact that our client is 81 years old, we are especially encouraged that Mr. Vance has assigned two highly respected prosecutors, Peter Casolaro and Charles King to work on this re-investigation,” Innocence Project and David B. Shanies Shanies Law Office, said in a joint statement.
    Halim initially refused to name the other gunmen.
    In 1978, Halim changed his mind and named the other four gunmen to lawyer William Kunstler, who provided the names and addresses of the killers and laid out a detailed timeline of the assassination plot. The gunmen were members of the Newark, New Jersey, Nation of Islam mosque, according to the documentary.
    Kunstler obtained previously undisclosed FBI documents through the Freedom of Information Act that supported Halim’s account. Judge Harold Rothwax rejected Kunstler’s motion to vacate the convictions of Aziz and Islam.
    Aziz said he was laying on the couch with his foot up listening to the radio when he heard Malcolm X had been assassinated.

  • Newswire: Senator Doug Jones denounces Trump Administration move to raid South Alabama funding to build border wall

    $261 Million for South Alabama ship-building project diverted for wall construction

    Sen. Doug Jones


    WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.) today received notification from the Senate Armed Services Committee that $261 million in funding directed to South Alabama ship-builders would soon be re-routed to support construction of the southern border wall. The funding was previously approved by Congress for the procurement of one Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ship, which was to be built in Mobile, Alabama.
    This funding is a part of a reported $3.83 billion re-programming of appropriated funds away from equipment for our warfighters, like ships, vehicles and aircraft.
    Senator Jones released the following statement on today’s news:
    “I am very concerned about the impact a decision like this could have on communities like Mobile, whose ship-building workforce is second to none. I understand and agree we need to protect our borders, but I can’t understand for the life of me why folks in Mobile would be paying for this wall.
    “The EPF is responsible for hundreds of good-paying jobs in South Alabama, but I am even more concerned about the impact this decision has on our men and women in uniform and our national security. This decision puts Alabama jobs on the line and it is going to make us less safe by denying our troops the resources they need to stay safe and fulfill their mission.

  • Newswire : Trump Administration cuts Food Stamps for at least 700,000 Americans

    By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor

    Food Stamp sign in store window


    The Trump Administration has finalized implementation of new work requirement rules that would cut food stamp benefits for 700,000 Americans. The average food stamp payout is $36 per month. Though the Trump Administration estimates that under 700,000 people will be impacted by their policy changes, the Urban Institute estimates that the new Trump Administration rule changes will cause 3.7 million poor people to lose food stamps.
    Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and Brandon Lipps, the deputy undersecretary for the USDA’s Food Nutrition and Consumer Services, spoke with reporters for under 20 minutes regarding the changes. The rule changes will take effect on April 1, 2020.
    The work requirement rule change will cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP.
    There are over 40 million people in the U.S. living in poverty — 1 of every 7 Americans and 12 percent of the total population. In the U.S., 27 percent of African Americans live in poverty and 46 percent of African American children (under age 6) live in poverty, compared to 14.5 percent of white children.
    “We’re taking action to reform our SNAP program in order to restore the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population and be respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program. Americans are generous people who believe it is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch. That’s the commitment behind SNAP, but, like other welfare programs, it was never intended to be a way of life,” Secretary Perdue told reporters.
    “Trump has called people liars and maniacs, caged children, and cut food stamps, and tried to take away health insurance and let people die. But Republicans are outraged that a law professor used his son’s name in an analogy?,” wrote Rev. Dr. William Barber referring to an exchange at a Dec. 4th impeachment hearing and food stamp cuts. Barber has been focused on a new age “poor people’s campaign” mirrored on the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s.
    “This is cruel and disgraceful. Donald Trump will happily give millions of dollars in tax breaks to his billionaire buddies—but he’s making it harder for struggling families to be able to eat. I’ll reverse this shameful policy,” wrote 2020 presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
    The rule change would limit states and force them to restrict food stamp use to areas that have a 6 percent unemployment rate or higher. The national unemployment rate in October was 3.6 percent.
    Income inequality and cuts to poverty programs are likely to be an issue in the 2020 campaign.

  • Greene County Commission and Sheriff Benison reach temporary solution on support for 11 additional employees

    The Greene County Commission and Sheriff Jonathan Benison have reached a temporary solution regarding the suspended pay for the 11 additional employees in the sheriff’s department.
    Immediately following the Greene County Commission’s work session on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, Commission Chairperson Allen Turner, Jr. and Commissioner Roshanda Summerville met with Sheriff Benison to discuss the funds needed for the 11 employees from the Sheriff’s department and other requirements. Attorney Hank Sanders advised Chairperson Turner, mainly by telephone.
    As the commissioners and the sheriff deliberated, the session did get heated. Emotions were high. They could be heard by those waiting outside the conference room.
    According to an earlier signed agreement between the commission and the sheriff, additional bingo funds from the sheriff would be provided to the county to support the additional 11 employees the sheriff wanted for his department and other requirements. To that date, no additional funds from the sheriff for this purpose had been provided to the commission during this fiscal year which began Oct. 1, 2020.
    For the first three months of the fiscal year, the commission transferred funds from other line items of the Sheriff’s department budget to support his additional employees. According to commission records, the sheriff’s county budget does not have funds for any additional transfers. Approximately $153,000 was necessary to meet the payroll of the 11 employees plus overtime and other requirements due for January.
    According to the county commission’s records, at the Feb. 5 meeting, the sheriff offered the county a partial payment of $26,666. The commissioners responded that this was unacceptable and following more discussions, the Sheriff added another payment of $18,342 and assured the commission that the balance to make up the $153,000 would be given to the county by Friday, Feb. 7.
    The commission, seemingly trusting the Sheriff, released the payroll to the 11 employees, many of whom had gathered awaiting the solution from this session. At the close of business day on Friday, Feb. 7, the county had not received any more bingo funds from the sheriff.
    On Monday afternoon, Feb. 10, the county commission received two separate payments from the sheriff’s bingo funds, one for $43,042.56 and one for $32,832,18. Minutes before the commission’s monthly meeting was to begin that evening, the sheriff delivered the final payment of $32,333.26, satisfying the $153,215.44 needed for the suspended January payroll and other requirements. However, this will not cover payroll for the sheriff’s additional 11 employees for the month of February and beyond.
    There remain concerns that this same situation is going to repeat itself.