The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire: The historic Chicago Defender among Black media icons scaling back, others possibly closing

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

    Front page of Chicago Defender


    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – It has been a rough few days for the Black media.
    First, Ebony magazine and its sister publication, JET magazine, may be closing their doors for good.
    And then the publisher of the storied Chicago Defender newspaper announced last week that it will no longer publish a print version.
    In announcing the move to digital-only beginning Thursday, July 11, Real Times Media CEO Hiram E. Jackson said last Friday that the newspaper has made significant investment in digital media because of changes in the publishing landscape.
    Jackson noted the Defender currently prints 16,000 newspapers. He said the newspaper reaches at least 10 times more people on its digital platform.
    Jackson said Real Times’ other newspapers, the Michigan Chronicle and the New Pittsburgh Courier, will continue to offer a print version.
    The newspaper was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and reached the peak of its influence at mid-century when it was a frequent critic of racial inequities in the nation’s Southern states.
    The Defender delivered news of monumental events — the funeral of Emmett Till, the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the election of President Obama — but also of everyday life for Black Americans.
    Jackson said the decision was an economic one. Newspapers throughout the industry have seen a decline in print advertising and readers turning to the internet.
    Black newspapers often are an afterthought when it comes to advertising dollars, Jean Patterson Boone, publisher of the Richmond Free Press told the New York Times.
    Regardless of the financial challenges, the Richmond Free Press, which has a weekly circulation of 35,000 and a draw of around 130,000 readers, has no intention of going the way of The Defender and eliminating its print edition.
    “We’re a miracle,” Mrs. Boone told the New York Times. “We are a miracle and most black newspapers
    are a miracle.”
    The National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade organization for African-American-owned newspapers, currently counts 218 such publications across 40 states that attract 22.2 million readers between print and online each week.
    Although the country may look different now, the enduring challenges of racism make the black press just as essential now, said Benjamin Chavis Jr., NNPA’s president and chief executive. The Greene County Democrat, weekly newspaper is a
    Member of the NNPA.
    As for Ebony and JET, former employees of the company took to Twitter last week using the hashtag #EbonyOwes to air their frustrations with the company, as it has fired all of its employees with little to no notice.
    According to USA Today, members of Ebony magazine’s digital team say they’ve been fired and haven’t received their final paychecks in the latest controversy to hit the struggling publication that has chronicled black life in America for decades.
    Michael Gibson, co-chairman and founder of Austin, Texas-based Clear View Group, which owns Ebony, declined to comment to USA TODAY on the digital team’s dismissal, citing a “policy of not commenting on any employment practices or issues.”
    The Chicago Tribune previously reported how Ebony was being pressed by the National Writers Union to pay more than $200,000 it alleged the magazine owed to freelance writers who contributed stories back in 2017. The drama sparked the hashtag #EbonyOwes on Twitter.
    According to a report on Ebony.com, the magazine’s previous owner, Johnson Publishing Co., filed for bankruptcy liquidation in April, which Ebony said would not affect its operations.
    “EBONY Media Operations, LLC brands, which include EBONY magazine, EBONY.com, digital magazine JET and jetmag.com and its related businesses, have viably operated independently of Johnson Publishing Company dba/ Fashion Fair Cosmetics (JPC) since Black-owned Ebony Media Operations, LLC (EMO) purchased the media assets of JPC in 2016. Black-owned investment firm CVG Group LLC assisted in the formation of EMO,” a statement read. “EMO is unaffected by the Chapter 7 bankruptcy announcement regarding the dissolution of JPC. EMO is not able to comment further and is not familiar with the facts or events of the JPC business.”
    The first issue of the iconic magazine hit stands 74 years ago and took the industry by storm. Founded by John H. Johnson in November 1945, the black-owned publication has always strived to address African-American issues, personalities and interests in a positive and self-affirming manner.
    Timeless editions of Ebony featured some of the biggest stars in black America, including issues covered by Diana Ross, Sidney Poitier, as well as President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama.

  • Newswire: Trump levels racist attack on Congresswomen of Color in latest social media screed

    By Lauren Victory Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor

    Four Congresswomen: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).


    President Donald Trump went on a racist screed on Twitter and attacked Democratic congresswomen of color and their ancestry. The 45th President, who succeeded the first African American President of the United States, Barack Obama, has often attacked Black female elected officials, such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Black athletes, immigrants, and other women of color.
    As is his general habit, Trump lies in his communications and brands places where people of color reside as dangerous. President Trump has a long history of racism as does his late father, Fred Trump. Fred Trump was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Queens, New York on May 30, 1927 when he was 21.
    Their company, Trump Properties, was sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination against Blacks in 1973. On May 1, 1989, Donald Trump took out ads in several of New York’s major newspapers demanding that the Central Park Five be given the death penalty. Even though the five have been exonerated, Trump has never admitted he was wrong or apologized.
    A hint of Trump’s racist views now on international display in The White House, was seen in 1989 as Trump linked the Central Park Five case to an overall decline in society.
    “At what point did we cross the line from the fine and noble pursuit of genuine civil liberties to the reckless and dangerously permissive atmosphere which allows criminals of every age to beat and rape a helpless woman and laugh at her family’s anguish? And why do they laugh? The laugh because they know that soon, very soon, they will be returned to the street to rape and maim and kill once again,” Trump said in a 1989 interview.
    On July 14, 2019, Trump wrote, “So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……” read one communication on Twitter the morning of July 14.
    Consistent with his racist attacks and communications both verbal and on social media, President Trump attacked three Congresswomen of color who have gained national prominence as they oppose Trump’s policies: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).
    Trump implied in a series of consecutive messages on Twitter on July 14 that the Congresswomen weren’t born in the United States and added, “they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
    Rep. Illan was born in Somalia and her family arrived in New York on 1992 and secured asylum in the U.S. in 1995. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, New York and Rep. Pressley was born in Chicago, Ill. Another Congresswoman Trump has attacked before, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), was born in Detroit, Michigan.
    Though Trump did not name who specifically he was referring to, the context of his communication on Twitter was clear to political observers. Earlier in July, Trump referenced the three women. All three, as well as many other members, have been outspoken about Trump’s immigration policies.
    The conditions of detention facilities at the Mexican border came into stark light after Vice President Pence visited a center on June 12. Video from the visit showed a large group of Mexican men grouped in a fenced in enclosure with no cots, food and few signs of running water or other basic needs.
    Trump’s direct messages or racism and xenophobia to his base have increased as the 2020 presidential campaign gets fully underway. The Iowa Caucuses are 203 days away as of July 14.


    Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist and writer for NNPA as well as a political analyst and strategist as Principal of Win Digital Media LLC. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on Twitter at @LVBurke

  • Newswire : West Africa inequality crisis called extreme in new report

    African goat herder

    July 8, 2019 (GIN) – “Inequality has reached extreme levels in West Africa, and today the wealthiest 1 per cent of West Africans own more than everyone else in the region combined.”
    That was the finding in a new report published by Oxfam and Development Finance International.

    According to the “West Africa Inequality Crisis” report, six of the ten fastest-growing economies in Africa were in West Africa, with Ivory Coast, Ghana and Senegal among the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies.

    “In most countries the benefits of this unprecedented economic growth have gone to a tiny few,” the report said.

    The report said the vast majority of West Africans were “denied the most essential elements of a dignified life, such as quality education, healthcare and decent jobs”.

    While West Africa suffers the most inequalities on the continent, many governments prefer to ignore problems despite economic growth, the report said.

    In Nigeria, for example, the wealth of the five richest Nigerian men combined stands at US$29.9 billion – more than the country’s entire budget in 2017, the report said.

    Rather than tackle inequality, some of the region’s governments were underfunding public services, such as health and education, and failing to tackle corruption, Oxfam’s regional director Adama Coulibaly said.

    The report called on governments to do more to promote progressive taxation, boost social spending, strengthen labor market protection, invest in agriculture and strengthen land rights for smallholders.

    For example, it said the region loses an estimated US$9.6 billion annually because of corporate tax incentives offered by governments to attract investors.

    But not all governments were tackling inequality the same way. Cape Verde, Mauritania and Senegal were among the most committed to reducing inequalities, it said, while Nigeria, Niger and Sierra Leone were among the least.

  • Newswire : Why nearly 350,000 workers in mostly red states aren’t seeing wage increases, even though their local lawmakers passed them

    Bettie Douglas, McDonalds worker in St. Louis

    By Tracy Jan, The Washington Post

         For most of her 13 years working the grill and cash register at McDonald’s, Bettie Douglas earned just over $7 an hour. Then in 2017, the St. Louis resident’s hourly pay rose to $10 after the city increased its minimum wage.
     But the Missouri legislature soon invalidated the local wage ordinancefollowing opposition from business groups, despite the state Supreme Court having already upheld the increase. Pay for tens of thousands of low-wage workers in St. Louis reverted to the state’s then-minimum of $7.70 an hour.
     Missouri is among 25 states that expressly block local municipalities from adopting their own minimum-wage laws. State legislatures in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky and Wisconsin have also invalidated local wage increases, costing nearly 350,000 workers a total of $1.5 billion per year, according to a new studyby the National Employment Law Project that quantifies for the first time the economic impact of prohibiting local wage increases.
     State laws preempting or nullifying higher local wages perpetuate economic inequality in American cities, hurting women and minority workers who are disproportionately employed in low-wage jobs, researchers say. More than 60 percent of affected workers affected in St. Louis, Birmingham and Miami Beach are people of color, according to the study.
     “Missouri was one of the most egregious examples of an overwhelmingly white legislatureundoing the will of local communities,” said Laura Huizar, a senior staff attorney for NELP and co-author of the report. “Preemption has been used as a tool to undermine higher wages, protect corporate profits, and cancel the voices of blacks and Latinos.”
     In addition to invalidating the local pay increases in St. Louis and Kansas City, the Missouri lawblocked the introduction of new employment benefit requirements such as paid sick leave and health, disability and retirement benefits. The St. Louis minimum wage had been scheduled to rise to $11 an hour by 2018. Kansas City’s was supposed to go up to $13 by 2020.
     On average, workers in the 12 municipalities where wage increases were overturned by state legislatures are losing almost $4,100 individually per year, the study found. Between 20 and 71 percent of the affected workers in these cities and counties live below the federal poverty line.
     Despite the strong economy and historically low unemployment rates, real wages for the majority of workers have flatlined over the past decade. Since the “Fight for $15” minimum-wage movement began in 2012, more than 40 cities and counties have passed laws raising the local wage floor — leading to a corporate-fueled backlash in many legislatures, Huizar said. Minimum-wage increases in 20 municipalities, including Washington, D.C., and two states went into effect July 1.
     Douglas, the McDonald’s worker in St. Louis, is the sole breadwinner in her family. At 61, she’s supporting her eldest son, who is recovering from a brain tumor; her youngest son, who has autism; and her brother, who is disabled. Each weekday morning, she catches two buses and a train to work because she cannot afford a car.
     “       Anybody earning a living wage to take care of their families and pay their bills,” said Douglas, who began working at age 12 in her parents’ janitorial business. “I’m not asking for a handout. I’m saying just give me my due.”
     Douglas said her boss at the fast-food restaurant allowed her to keep her $10 hourly wage as a recognition of her long service, but many of her colleagues lost their raises.
     Still, she said she has no health insurance, no paid vacations or sick leave, and no retirement benefits. She said she hasn’t been to a doctor in the 18 years since she gave birth to her youngest son.

    Missouri voters last fall approved a ballot measure to raise the state minimum wage from $8.60 to $12 an hour by 2023. Douglas says she’s fighting for $15, which still falls short of the $16.32 hourly wage required for a single adult in St. Louis to meet his or her basic needs — let alone the $18.99 required for a family of four.
    “We are all just one paycheck away from being homeless,” Douglas said. “No one in America should live like that.”

  • Newswire: Black troops fought bravely at Normandy 75 years ago

    By Leonard E. Colvin, Chief Reporter, New Journal and Guide

    Black troops at Normandy


    The United States, Great Britain, France and other allies recently observed the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing on five beaches along Southern France at Normandy on their way to defeat Nazi Germany.
    The modern images of the allied leaders, including the U.S. President and other participants, captured by the media at the Normandy Beach event appeared mostly white.
    Seventy-five years ago, the mainstream news media and various movies such as “The Longest Day” and others also captured the images of white soldiers valiantly fighting on the sandy beaches against withering gunand cannon fire from the Germans.
    But thanks to the written words and imagesrecorded by members of the Black Press who were eye witnesses to the action in Southern France to Berlin, the contributions and valor of Black military men and women were recorded, too.
    Along with a quarter million Black servicemen, Black newsmen from the Norfolk Journal and Guide, the National Newspaper Publisher’s Association (NNPA)and the Associated Negro Press (ANP) were on hand to recordthis history left out of the mainstream press then and recently.
    Throughout WWII and especially D-Day in 1944, the Black Press dispatched reporters such as the New Journal and Guide’s John Q. ‘Rover’ Jordan and P.B.Young, Jr.,Thomas Young, Lem Graves and the ANP’s Joseph Dunbar to the European and South Pacific War Zones to cover the exploits of the Black soldiers.
    In many of the stories printed on the pages of the GUIDE, one could detect the toneof the accounts indicating that the reporters wanted to make clear that “Negro” soldierswere making significant contributions.
    They worked on the ground and the air in combat, in support roles like driving trucks, operating machinery,medical support units, military police, tactical and leading administrative work.
    The tone countered the daily newspapers which catered to its white readership, ignoring any significant contributions of the Black Warriors.
    “If it were not for those GUIDE and other Black reporters, the story of Black men and women on D-Day or in other areas related to World War II would have beenignored,” said Dr. Henry Lewis Suggs, Professor Emeritus of American History, Clemson University, who is retired now.
    Dr. Suggs wrote the biography “P.B. Young, Sr., Newspaper Man.” Young, who founded the GUIDE newspaper after serving as the editor of its predecessor, the Lodge Journal newsletter dating to 1900, was a leading Black media,political and civic leader in Virginia and nationally from the early 1930s until he died in 1962.
    Weekly, during the war, the GUIDE published local,state, national, Virginia and Peninsula editions of the newspaper. Each edition included news about the war and the rolesthat Black soldiers, sailors, Coast Guard and civilians played at home and abroad.
    The articles not only pointed out the bravery and professionalism of the Black troops, they also noted the heavy number of casualties Blacks suffered in combat.
    The stories which were distributed to other Black newspapers also recorded acts of racial bias against the Black patriots.
    There were stories of the many cases where Black and white troops worked “shoulder to shoulder” withno tension away from the field of battle and during it.
    “In Norfolk, the only source of news Black civilians got about Black soldiers and sailors overseas or at home was from the Black Press,” said Suggs.
    Suggs said the contributions of the Black warriors during WWII helped fuel African American efforts after the war to pursue socio-economic and political equality.
    Further, the thousands of Blacks who fought in the war, used the G.I. Bill to secure an education and other support to attend Black colleges which helped them grow.
    Suggs said that African Americans had their great generation of Black men who participated in the war. They later became the Black lawyers, doctors and educators and other professional and political class who fostered the Black middle class.
    “Negro troops did their duty excellently under fire on Normandy’s beaches in a zone of heavy combat,” General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Invasion Forces, declared.
    That statement was a greeting sent by the General, fondly known as “Ike” by the Black troops, to the NAACP’s Wartime Conference meeting In Chicago held that year. It appeared in the July 15, 1944 edition of the GUIDE under the headline “Eisenhower Proud of Our Troops in France,” verifying history.
    It also noted Black leadership’s citing the resistance and their insistance for sending Black Women Army Corps (WACs) to the front.

  • Newswire : Patrick Gaspard to receive prestigious NAACP Spingarn Medal


    Patrick Gaspard

    BALTIMORE – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s foremost civil rights organization, has announced that Ambassador Patrick Gaspard will be awarded the prestigious Spingarn Medal during the NAACP’s 110th Annual Convention taking place in Detroit, Michigan on July 24.

    The award recognizes Gaspard’s lifelong commitment to equality and civil rights. Gaspard, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, moved with his parents to the United States when he was three years old. He served as political director for President Barack Obama in the White House and as the Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee, overseeing the party committee’s efforts to re-elect President Obama.
    In 2013, President Obama nominated Gaspard to the post of United States ambassador to South Africa. He worked to strengthen civil society and worked in partnership with the South African government to develop the country’s healthcare infrastructure and to support innovations in local governance. He also worked to connect South African entrepreneurs to United States markets; develop clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies; and to end wildlife trafficking.

    “Patrick Gaspard is a global champion for civil and human rights. Hiscontributions to campaigns to end police brutality, improve access to affordable health care, and increase dignity for working families is unparalleled,”said Derrick Johnson, NAACP President and CEO.For over 100 years, we have honored leaders who have served as pillars in the fight for justice and this year’s selection of the Patrick Gaspard is no exception.”
    “The NAACP has been a beacon and an inspiration to me my entire life; Its leaders blazed the trails we now walk, and helped make my career, and the careers of countless other organizers and activists, possible,” said Gaspard. “The previous recipients of this incredible honor are among my greatest heroes, who showed us what dedication and the courage of our convictions could achieve. To be in their company is beyond humbling. I am enormously grateful for this recognition, and will do all that I can to try, now and in the years to come, to live up to its promise.”
    “Ambassador Gaspard’s service within the Labor Movement as well as his tenure as a member of the Obama administration has always inured to the benefit of all Americans,” said Leon W. Russell, NAACP Chairman, National Board of Directors. “His service in the diplomatic corps as Ambassador to South Africa during a challenging period of that nation’s development was stellar.”
    The NAACP Spingarn award was established in 1914 by the late Joel E. Spingarn then Chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors. It was given annually until his death in 1939. The medal is awarded “for the highest or noblest achievement by a living African American during the preceding year or years.” A fund to continue the award was set up by his will, thus, the NAACP has continued to present this award. Previous recipients of this award include: Mrs. Daisy Bates (Little Rock Nine), Jesse L. Jackson, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Earl G. Graves Sr., Oprah Winfrey, Cecily Tyson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and the Honorable Nathaniel Jones. Tickets to the Spingarn Dinner can be purchased on the NAACP Convention website here.

    ABOUT NAACP 110TH CONVENTION:
    Other highlights will include a Presidential Candidates Forum, a legislative session, a CEO Roundtable, LGBTQ workshop plus the highly anticipated NAACP Experience retail expo and diversity career fair. More information about the 110thAnnual NAACP National Convention, including a detailed schedule of events may be found by visiting naacpconvention.org. Media interested in covering the event should apply for press credentials here.

  • Newswire : Waters convenes hearing on need for diversity on Federal and corporate Boards

    Congresswoman Maxine Waters

    WASHINGTON – At a full Committee hearing entitled, “Diversity in the Boardroom: Examining Proposals to Increase the Diversity of America’s Boards,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, gave the following opening statement:

    Today, this Committee convenes for a hearing on the lack of racial, ethnic and gender diversity on federal and corporate boards.
    Strong diversity in the boardroom is critical to continued U. S. competitiveness and to ensuring that consumers of all backgrounds are served and not excluded. Unfortunately, corporate and federal boards are not living up to their responsibility to reflect America’s rich diversity.
    According to the Alliance for Board Diversity, over 80 percent of new board directors at Fortune 500 companies in 2017 were white males. The Federal government also has a long way to go. For example, our own Federal Reserve System has been in existence since 1913, but it wasn’t until 2017 that Raphael Bostic became the very first African-American and first openly gay man to serve as a Federal Reserve Bank president.
    At the same time, America continues to become more demographically diverse. According to the 2018 Census projections, youthful minorities will be the leading source of future workers, taxpayers and consumers.
    In our May 1 Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee hearing entitled, “Good for the Bottom Line: Reviewing the Business Case for Diversity,” we set the record straight that highly inclusive companies:
    · Outperform their competitors;
    · Rate themselves 170% better at innovation; and
    · Generate 1.4 times more revenue.

    Despite the clear benefits of inclusivity and diversity, white males still remain in the majority of seats on corporate and federal boards. Women of color in particular have been excluded from participation on boards. Although some reports show that the percentages of women on boards may be increasing, the raw numbers reveal that compared to white males and white women, African-American, Asian and Latina women still have the fewest seats. In order to understand these trends, we must continue to have access to board diversity data.
    Diversity is one of the best investments a company can make. Diverse boards help intentionally guide companies and industry toward business solutions that maximize returns on that diversity investment.
    Before us today are witnesses who can share perspectives on the status of board demographics. I look forward to drilling down on the current state of board diversity and discussing solutions so that more women and minorities can be appointed to board seats.
    Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), is the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services.

  • Newswire- Kenyan reserve deploys an anti-poaching technology arsenal

    This is a photo of an African Rhino

    Ol Pejeta Game Reserve, in Kenya, has taken the battle against poaching a notch higher and deployed an arsenal of anti-poaching equipments.
    The conservation’s ranger uses a 360 ° camera films the area and relays round-the-clock possible intrusions to the reserve headquarters. The camera is part of high-tech equipment launched last month by the conservation as part of the first high-tech laboratory for wildlife, a research center located in the heart of the sanctuary to integrate new technologies into the daily management of animal reserves.
    “What’s bothering me with the world of wildlife protection is our slow pace of adopting new technologies and putting in place new ways of doing things – it has to change,” said Richard Vigne, the director general of Ol Pejeta.
    Computer engineers at Ol Pejeta test the next generation of animal geo-location chips and develop sensors that will one day provide information on the health status of rangers, river levels etc.
    The private reserve on Kenya’s Laikipia plateau is home to the last two northern white rhinos in the world – two females – and the largest population in East Africa of black rhinos, a critically endangered species.
    The 360 km2 reserve with 250 rangers responsible for security is battling the high threat of poaching. Last year, three rhinos were killed, their horns sectioned and carried away, in the Meru National Park, on the other side of Mount Kenya.

  • Newswire- Neo-Nazi who killed Charlottesville protester Heather Heyer sentenced to Life in Prison

    By Laurel Wamsley and Bobby Allyn, NPR

    This is a photo of a car plowing into pedestrians and vehicles on the mall in Charlottesville during a white supremacist rally. The driver hit the knot of cars and people at high speed, then backed up and fled the scene.

    The man who drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Va., killing one person and injuring 35 has been sentenced to spending the rest of his life in prison.
    A federal judge issued the sentence of life without the possibility of parole on Friday for self-proclaimed neo-Nazi James Fields Jr., 22, of the Toledo, Ohio, area.
    The judge’s punishment, announced in a Charlottesville courtroom, came after numerous survivors delivered emotional testimony about the psychological and physical toll the attack caused.
    After the hearing, prosecutors described the 2017 attack as heinous.
    “It was cold-blooded. It was motivated by deep-seated racial animus,” Thomas Cullen, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, told reporters. He said Fields’ lethal car-plowing was calculated, calling it “a hate-inspired act of domestic terrorism.”
    “Charlottesville is never going to be the same,” Cullen said. “It will be with this community, and the commonwealth of Virginia, and this country, for a long time.”
    Survivors who testified included Rosia Parker, a longtime civil rights activist in Charlottesville. She told the court she watched the attack from just feet away. “You could have done anything else but what you did,” Parker said, according to The Associated Press. “You deserve everything that you get.”
    In legal filings presented to the judge on Friday, Fields’ lawyers said while he committed a “terrible crime,” they asked the judge to also consider Fields’ “traumatic childhood and his mental illness,” wrote Fields’ federal public defender, Lisa Lorish.
    Federal prosecutors had asked the judge for a life sentence for Fields. A plea deal brokered in March took away the possibility of the death penalty, and federal prosecutors and Fields’ lawyers agreed that federal sentencing guidelines called for a life sentence. As part of the deal, Fields pleaded guilty to 29 of the 30 federal hate crimes he facedand is not eligible for parole.
    Prosecutors had said Fields’ crimes were “so horrendous — and the maiming of innocents so severe — that they outweigh any factors the defendant may argue form a basis for leniency,” according to a sentencing document filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Kavanaugh before the Friday hearing.
    Last week, Fields’ attorneys asked for something shorter than a life sentence, citing Fields’ age and history of mental illness.
    Fields has already been convicted of separate state charges for murdering 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of other people. The jury in that case recommended a life sentence plus 419 years and $480,000 in fines. Sentencing in that case is set for July 15.
    Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, said in Aprilthat she was satisfied with Fields’ federal guilty plea and was not intent on his getting the death penalty. “There’s no point in killing him. It would not bring back Heather,” she told reporters.
    Fields was 20 when he drove his Dodge Challengerthrough the night from Ohio to attend Unite the Right, a white nationalist rally, in August 2017. The weekend turned deadly when Fields accelerated his car into the group of protesters. Two Virginia State Police troopers investigating the day’s events also died when the helicopter they were in crashed.
    Before he was sentenced on Friday, Fields offered an apology for “the hurt and loss I have caused,” the AP reported.
    Lawyers for Fields wrote the court to say that he used Twitter in search of community and “quickly learned that provocative and hateful comments led to more exposure,” leading him to follow white supremacist accounts, including Richard Spencer and Mike Peinovich.
    Fields’ lawyers wrote that he found out about the Unite the Right rally through its organizers’ online recruiting campaign.
    His attorneys say he had no intent to commit a violent act, instead describing the attack as a “impulsive, angry and aggressive decision.”
    President Trump said afterwardthat there was “blame on both sides” for the violence in the college town.

  • Newswire- Supreme Court sends mixed Civil Rights signals as America celebrates July 4th

    By Hamil R. Harris

    Supreme Court

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – On the eve of America’s celebration of its 243rd Independence Day, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down rulings that sent mixed messages to Civil Rights groups at a time when President Trump and Republicans hope to tilt the 2020 presidential elections their way.
    In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the issue of partisan gerrymandering (drawing district lines in order to achieve political outcomes) does not belong in federal court and should be decided by state legislatures. Conservatives applauded that decision because it comes on the eve of the 2020 Census when state lawmakers configure districts often to benefit whatever party controls their particular state.
    While the court rejected challenges to Republican-drawn congressional districts in North Carolina and a Democratic district in Maryland, the decision was still a major blow to critics who have argued for years that partisan manipulation of electoral maps unfairly results in single-party political control. The 5-4 decision fell along traditional conservative-liberal lines. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts voted to keep the redistricting cases out of the federal courts. And liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer voted to maintain federal jurisdiction over the cases.
    Speaking for the conservative majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that while redistricting plans “are highly partisan by any measure,” the Supreme Court and lower courts are not the venues to settle these disputes. With this decision, Civil Rights groups say the court is giving state houses, mostly controlled by Republicans, more power to tilt things in their ideological direction.
    But writing for the four dissenting judges, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who was appointed by President Obama, said, “For the first time ever, this court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.”
    In the case of Rucho V. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, said in a statement, “The Court’s rulings are allowing party politics to determine the outcomes of our elections…Extreme partisan gerrymandering has infected our electoral process for far too long. Exercise of the franchise, which many fought and even died for, must not be reduced to a political charade in which the outcomes are predetermined. In America, voters should choose their representatives instead of representatives choosing their voters.”
    Johnson concluded that the high court should have halted what the NAACP and other civil rights advocates consider unconstitutional conduct, but it did not. Therefore, he contends, this is a throwback racism of the past.
    “In racially polarized environments like North Carolina where racial block voting is standard, today’s decision will license policymakers to mask racial intent as partisan gerrymandering in order to suppress votes and prevent communities from fully participating in democracy to elect candidates of their choice,” Johnson stated.
    The court’s decision basically reverses the outcome of rulings in Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio, where lower courts had ordered new maps drawn and it ends proceedings in Wisconsin, where a retrial was supposed to take place later this summer.
    Supreme Court decision in Census case more acceptable
    On the other hand, the NAACP and members of the Congressional Black Caucus applauded the court ruling in the case of the Department of Commerce v. New York that blocks the Trump Administration’s attempt to insert a citizenship question into the 2020 Census based on the pretext of enforcing the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
    “I am very pleased that the Supreme Court ruled today that the Trump Administration may not add the citizenship question to the 2020 Census based on the Administration’s claim that it was trying to protect voting rights,” said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), referring to the 5-4 decision where Robert’s decided with the most liberal leaning justices on the bench.
    Cummings, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Operations Committee, challenged President Trump’s move from the very beginning after his Secretary of Commerce added the citizenship question to the upcoming 2020 Census form.
    “Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testified before Congress that the Trump Administration was adding the citizenship question to the census ‘solely’ at the request of the Justice Department to help enforce the Voting Rights Act,” Cummings said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has now eviscerated this claim, calling it a ‘pretext,’ ‘contrived,’ and ‘incongruent with what the record reveals.’
    Some have suggested that Secretary Ross could go back and offer other reasons for adding the citizenship question. However, any claim now that the Trump Administration had other reasons for adding the citizenship question would directly contradict Secretary Ross’ sworn testimony that helping the Justice Department enforce the Voting Rights Act was the Administration’s sole purpose.
    Johnson said that the NAACP also welcomed the court ruling, which he said stopped the Trump administration’s fraudulent efforts to suppress votes in the upcoming Presidential election.
    “Through various means, the Trump administration is deliberately seeking to undercount communities of color in the 2020 Census, a ploy designed to increase the political power of Whites at the expense of already underrepresented communities,” Johnson said. “Weakening the political representation of communities of color has been a stain on our democracy since its founding. The Three-Fifths Compromise of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 counted enslaved black people as three-fifths of a person in apportioning congressional districts. Since that time, the Census has severely undercounted the communities of color.”
    This week President Trump has planned a huge 4th of July celebration, complete with a military parade and even a jet fly over in Washington DC. But Johnson wrote that President Trump would do better by stopping his effort to take Democracy away from so many vulnerable people whether it is through a census or mass deportations scheduled sometimes after the holiday.
    “The citizenship question was not made for the reasons put forth by Secretary Ross,” Johnson said. “Rather, it was a bald-faced effort to benefit one race and one political party at the expense of some of our nation’s most vulnerable communities. This astounding truth can no longer be swept under the rug. It is there for all to see.”