The Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Newswire : Harvard Study: Steep declines in Black home ownership in major cities 39 million families challenged with housing costs

    By Charlene Crowell

    housing study
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – For the 12th consecutive year, America’s national homeownership rate has declined, according Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS)’ annual report, State of the Nation’s Housing 2017. This year’s report also found these declines vary by race and ethnicity.
    As some might expect, the steepest homeownership decline occurred in Black communities, where the percentage of homeowners dropped to 42.2 percent. Among the nation’s largest metro areas, Black homeownership declined the greatest in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas and Detroit. By contrast, Latino-American homeownership is higher at 46 percent; but both communities of color severely lag behind the nearly 72 percent rate of white homeownership.
    “The ability of most US households to become homeowners,” states the report, “depends on the availability and affordability of financing.”
    And therein lies the crux of the problem: access and affordability.
    The lack of access to mortgage financing in Black America has a long history rooted in outright discrimination by private actors such as banks, and supported by inequitable federal housing policies that favored white communities, while intentionally disadvantaging Black communities. This discrimination hindered generations of Black families from entering and remaining among America’s middle class. These practices also resulted in lower levels of both Black wealth and homeownership.
    Today, applying for a mortgage means a visit to a bank where high incomes, low debt and high credit scores are among the most favored measures for loan application success. Since the foreclosure crisis, according to the JCHS report, the median credit score for an owner-occupied home purchase origination increased from about 700 in 2005 to 732 in 2016.
    Just as communities of color were wrongly targeted for predatory and high-cost mortgages that pushed them into foreclosure, these same communities are the most likely to have suffered credit score declines from foreclosures, unemployment or delinquent debt – or a combination of all three.
    According to a 2017 CFED report, A Downpayment on the Divide, the mortgage denial rate for Blacks is more than 25 percent, near 20 percent for Latinos but just over 10 percent for white applicants.
    The issue of housing affordability is just as challenging. CFED also found that whites are three times more likely than Blacks to receive financial assistance from families to pay for down payments and other upfront costs that accompany a mortgage. The racial disparity is due to America’s history of whites being able to accumulate wealth through homeownership opportunity while Blacks were denied. As a result, Black households typically delay homeownership 8 years longer than whites, resulting in a comparable delay in building home equity.
    JCHS also found that nearly 39 million American families are financially challenged with their cost of housing.
    So is the American Dream of homeownership realistic for communities of color?
    A June 29 public hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee focused on how mortgage finance reform and government-sponsored enterprises, also known as GSEs, must live up to its “duty to serve” all communities.
    “Homeownership is the primary way that most middle-class families build wealth and achieve economic stability,” testified Mike Calhoun, President of the Center for Responsible Lending. “Wide access to credit is critical for building family wealth, closing the racial wealth gap and for the housing market overall.”
    In the throes of the 1930s Great Depression, Congress created the GSEs to provide stability to capital markets and to increase the availability of mortgage credit throughout the nation. They were also given a mandate: Serve all credit markets all times, ensuring access and availability across the country.
    From 2003 to 2006, the years leading up to the housing crisis, the GSEs followed an unfortunate private mortgage market trend. By loosening underwriting guidelines, particularly for Alt-A no documentation loans, millions of foreclosures occurred and GSE credit losses led to conservatorship under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, also known as HERA. HERA also enacted a number of reforms that have made today’s market stronger.
    Now, with far fewer foreclosures nationwide, Congress is deliberating over the future of the GSEs and $6.17 trillion in mortgages they now hold along with Federal Housing Administration issued mortgages. “Home equity accounts for only 30 percent of the net worth for wealthier households,” continued Calhoun, “but constitutes 67 percent for middle-to-low income households. Home equity accounts for 53 percent of African-American wealth as compared to 39 percent for whites.”
    Homebuyers of the future will be more racially and ethnically diverse than those of the past. The JCHS reported that non-whites accounted for 60 percent of household growth from 1995-2015. By 2035, it predicts that half of millennial households will be non-white.
    When communities of all sizes, colors, and economies succeed, so does America. While much of our nation has financially recovered from the foreclosure crisis that brought the loss of homes, jobs, businesses, and wealth, recovery has been uneven and left many communities behind.
    Those entrusted with leadership roles in the public and private sectors must agree that it is in our national interest to ensure that the recovery is inclusive and sustainable long-term. Broad access to mortgage credit still helps families and the national economy.
    Concluded Calhoun, “The goal must be to ensure that the full universe of creditworthy borrowers – regardless of where they live, including in rural areas, or who they are – have access to the credit they need to be able to secure a mortgage so that they can build their American dreams.”
    Charlene Crowell is the communications deputy director for the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.

  • Newswire : Study: Blacks comprise majority of defendants who are wrongfully convicted

    By Frederick H. Lowe

    arrested-black man in handcuffs.jpg

    Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – African-Americans comprise the majority of defendants wrongfully convicted of murder, sexual assault and drug crimes who are later exonerated, according to a study released by the National Registry of Wrongful Convictions.
    The report titled “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States” reported that African-Americans constituted 47 percent of the 1,900 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations as of October 2016, and a great majority of more than 1,800 additional innocent defendants who were framed and convicted of crimes in 15 large-scale police scandals and later cleared in “group” exonerations.
    The report examined racial disparities for the major crime categories of murder, sexual assault and drug crimes, three crimes that produce the largest number of exonerations.
    African Americans who were convicted of murder are about 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers, the report stated. “A major cause of the high number of black murder exonerations is the high homicide rate in the black community—a tragedy that kills many African-Americans and sends many others to prison,” the report stated.
    Blacks imprisoned for murder are more likely to be innocent if they were convicted of killing white victims. Only about 15 percent of murders by African- Americans involve White victims, but 31 percent of innocent African-American murder exonerees were convicted of killing White people.
    The convictions that led to murder exonerations with black defendants were 22 percent more likely to include misconduct by police than those with White defendants.
    Police assist in convicting black murder defendants through witness tampering, which occurred in 21 percent of murder exonerations with white defendants but occurred in 39 percent of trials with Black defendants.
    “Many of the convictions of African-American murder exonerees were affected by a wide range of types of racial discrimination, from unconscious bias and institutional discrimination to explicit racism,” the report stated.
    Black exonerees spent three years longer in prison before release than White murder exonerees, and Black exonerees sentenced to death spent four years longer behind bars.
    Black prisoners serving time for sexual assault are three and-a-half times more likely to be innocent than a White assault convict. “The major cause of this huge racial disparity appears to be the high danger of mistaken eyewitness identification by white victims in violent crimes with Black assailants,” the report stated.
    Drug crimes are also those in which the majority of blacks are exonerated. Although Blacks and Whites use drugs at an equal rate, African-Americans are about five times more likely than Whites to go to prison for drug possession. And judging from exonerations, innocent Black people are about 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent White people.
    That is because police enforce drug laws more vigorously against African-Americans than against the white majority. Police stop Blacks more frequently, search, arrest and convict them in cases where they are innocent.
    “Since 1989, more than 1,800 defendants have been cleared in group exonerations that followed 15 large-scale police scandals in which officers systematically framed innocent defendants,” the report stated. “The great majority were African-American defendants who were framed for drug crimes that never occurred.”
    In Harris County, Texas, for example, there have been 133 exonerations in ordinary drug possession cases in the last few years. The defendants pled guilty, but routine lab tests showed those arrested were not carrying drugs. Houston is the largest city in Harris County.
    The National Registry of Wrongful Convictions is a project of the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University Law School and Newkirk Center for Science & Society at the University of California Irvine.

  • Newswire : In “Chokehold: Policing Black Men” Attorney Paul Butler takes on police brutality

    By: Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

    paulbutler_gu_web120-1

     Georgetown Law Professor Paul Butler writes about police brutality in “Chokehold: Policing Black Men.” (Georgetown University)
    Police brutality in the Black community is as old as law enforcement itself.
    Former federal prosecutor Paul Butler speaks in depth on the issue in his new book, “Chokehold: Policing Black Men.” “Even as a prosecutor I was a still a Black man,” said Butler during an interview on MSNBC with Rev. Al Sharpton. “I was even arrested for a crime I didn’t commit…I was acquitted in less than five minutes.”
    In his book, Butler points out that Black people have never been in a situation of good faith in America with police. “When we say that the system is targeting Black men, that’s true,” Butler told Sharpton. Butler worked as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice and is now a professor at Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C. Butler also had a few recommendations for decreasing incidents of police brutality.
    “Half of cops should be women,” Butler suggested. “Women cops are much less likely to shoot people.” Butler continued: “Cops should have college degrees. Cops with college degrees are much less likely to shoot unarmed people.”
    Butler takes a “no-holds-barred” approach to writing about police brutality. In his book, Butler also points out that White men commit the majority of violent crime in the United States and that a White woman is ten times more likely to be raped by a White male acquaintance than becoming a victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a Black man.
    Butler also speaks forcefully on the unwarranted fear Whites have of Blacks, and how that perception ends up impacting American policing.

  • University of West Alabama receives approval for a charter school; Will this help or hurt public education in Sumter County?

    A News Analysis
    By: John Zippert,Co-Publisher

    The Alabama Public Charter School Commission on June 27, 2017 approved the application of the University of West Alabama for a charter school on campus.
    Dr. Ken Tucker, President of UWA has been vigorously promoting the idea of a charter school since the end of last year. Community meetings were held in March 2017 in Livingston, York, Emelle and Epes to solicit public comments and input on the proposed charter school.
    The mission, as stated on the website of the University’s Charter School, is to be a rural, diverse K-12 school that cultivates independent thought, promotes the building of character and civic responsibility. The school is committed to preparing all students for personal and professional success through the discovery of individual learning pathways in a rigorous and integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) focused, project-based and place-based curriculum.
    The school ties into other components of the University’s educational program including its Black Belt Teacher Corps, Center for Excellence in Teaching, Rural Schools Collaborative and others.
    The school is proposed to open a pre-K through 5th grade in 2018-2019, and add subsequent grades in the following years. Initially the school will be located on the UWA campus but other alternative sites are also being explored.
    The charter school will have its own private non-profit board of directors to control the school. The University’s board will not govern the school, according to the website, but the initial work and funding has been sponsored and coordinated with UWA.
    The website states, “ A charter school provides an alternative to students and parents. According to the Alabama Kid’s Count Data Book, there are more than 2,500 K-12 students in Sumter County. Of this number, just over 1,700 are associated with a school located in Sumter County. This reveals a deficit of more than 800 students who are either enrolled in a school system outside Sumter County or not enrolled at all. The establishment of a charter school in Sumter County gives those students another educational option.”
    Where are these 800 students? Some of the younger ones are in Headstart or Early Headstart; some attend schools in neighboring counties, e.g., Demopolis, Pickens County, Tuscaloosa; and some attend Sumter Academy, which was established in the 1960’s to accommodate white children who did not want to attend integrated schools. Recently, Sumter Academy announced it was closing its doors due to lack of enrollment.

    President Ken Tucker says that the proposed charter school will help to deal with depopulation, loss of business and industry, skilled workforce shortages, poverty and lack of child well being. Marcus Campbell, Chair of the Sumter County Commission says he was on an exploratory committee for the charter school and was told that it would help to attract new industry and people to the community.
    The charter school will be funded based on the state per-pupil allocation. If the charter school draws from children attending the public schools, then it will hurt and reduce the budget for the existing public schools in the county. The charter school seems to sidestep this concern by focusing on the students, mostly white, from Sumter County, who seemingly chose not to attend public schools in the county.
    Ms. Daisybelle Quinney, Sumter County School Board member says, “I am opposed to this charter school, it further divides the community and takes resources from public education. If UWA was so concerned and interested in the welfare and future of Sumter County students why didn’t they come to meet with our Board and Superintendent and help to bring all the students together in one great school system.”
    Ms. Julene Delaine, another SC school Board member said,
    “I am 100% for public schools. I think it is time for people in Sumter County, Black and white, to come together to build up and make things better, not worse and tear things apart.”
    Delaine also pointed out that members of the last graduating class at Sumter Central had entered college at a sophomore level because of taking Advanced Placement classes in the public school and that students earned $6.5 million in college scholarships.
    An official release, faxed to the Democrat from the Sumter County Board of Education, stated the following: “The Sumter County Board of Education will continue to improve all aspects of our academic and extra curricular programs. At this time we do not have any comments on the UWA charter school.”
    Ms. Drucilla Jackson, Vice-Chair of the Sumter County Commission, said, “ I graduated from UWA but what they are doing to set up a new school to take resources from the public schools is shameful and unacceptable. They are going to take a few of our brightest and best students out of the public schools but most of the students will be white students fleeing school integration. The saddest part of this is that white folks need to face up to living and working in a society with Black people if we are going to have real change in the Black Belt.”
    There are many questions that the people of Sumter and surrounding counties need to ask about this charter school. How many students and resources will they take from Sumter County Public Schools and Headstart? How diverse will their student body really be and how will they insure this? What kind of teachers will they have at the school?; will they be properly credentialized? Why does the charter school need a separate board that has only two African-American members in a county with a 70% Black majority?
    Dr. Carol P. Zippert, a Greene County School Board member said, “ It is undeniable that this charter school will take resources from the public schools but the real issue is that UWA and its white supporters do not accept or want to be governed and controlled by a Board of Education and Superintendent elected by a Black majority population in Sumter County. How will UWA help education in the Alabama Black Belt if they do not trust or believe in Black leadership?”

     

  • Newswire : US denies visa to Gambian school robotics team

    Robot built by high school students in The Gambia will be shipped to Washington, DC, for event without its inventors.

    By: Azad Essa and Colin Baker, Aljazeera News
    87f862ab9177420f9972517b771b7dca_18

    The team built the robot during rigorous seven-hour shifts throughout Ramadan [Moctar Darboe/Al Jazeera]

    Five teenage pupils from The Gambia, a small nation in Africa. who built a robot for a prestigious international competition in the United States will not be able to accompany their invention to the event after being denied a visa.
    The Gambian pupils become the second team of students refused entry to the US to attend the FIRST Global robotics event in Washington, DC, on July 16-18. On Saturday, it was reported that an all-girls team from Afghanistan were also denied a visa to travel to the US to showcase their creation at the same competition.
    Moktar Darboe, director of The Gambia’s ministry of higher education, research, science and technology, told Al Jazeera that the team, made up of high school pupils aged 17-18, were “very disappointed”.
    “They put in so much effort into building this, and now, after all the sacrifice and energy they put in, they have been left disheartened,” Darboe, who is also the team’s mentor, said on Monday.
    The robot, a ball sorting machine, will be shipped off in the next day or two, he added.
    The Gambian American Association will represent the team at the event and the students in The Gambia’s capital, Banjul, will watch it over Skype.
    The FIRST Global Challenge is open to students aged 15 to 18 from across the globe. According to FIRST, around 158 countries will be represented, including 40 African countries. Only the teams from Afghanistan and The Gambia have had their visas rejected so far.
    Darboe said that the visa was denied shortly after their interview at the US embassy in Banjul in April. They were not given any explanation. “We were only told that we did not qualify and that we could try again.”
    According to Darboe, the students had to pay $170 each for the visa application. “Their parents had to sacrifice a lot to pay this fee.” The students continued building the robot despite being denied the visa, hoping the decision would ultimately change.
    They were further buoyed by a visit of US Ambassador C Patricia Alsup to their project site last month. “She gave us hope not to give up, and she said they would give us all their support to help us go further,” 17-year-old Khadijatou Gassam, a science student and spokesperson for the team, said.
    The US embassy in Banjul told Al Jazeera that it did not comment on consular affairs. Kevin Brosnahan, a spokesperson for the state department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said he was unable to discuss individual visa cases.
    Last week, the US Supreme Court allowed the partial enforcement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban on residents, citizens and refugees from six Muslim-majority countries – but both The Gambia and Afghanistan are not on the list.
    In March, at least 60 African citizens were denied visas for African Global Economic and Development Summit in the US state of California. Organizers said at the time they were not sure if the rejection was linked to Trump’s anti-immigrant policies or if talk of the travel ban was being used to “to blatantly reject everyone”.
    Darboe said building the robot was difficult. When parts arrived, customs officials took their time in releasing them. “They asked us if were building RoboCop,” he said.
    Fatoumata Ceesay, the team’s programmer, told Al Jazeera that she had come to terms with the fact their creation will be run by other students in the US. The 17-year-old said they had worked under trying conditions, day and night, and with little guidance over the entire Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. “And we started building it after the [visa] rejection. We built it despite knowing we weren’t going,” she said.
    Gassam says that she was disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to represent The Gambia and “show the world [that] ‘yes, we can do it’”. “But we’re not giving up, despite the challenges we face, we still continue to work hard,” she said. “Next year it will be somewhere else, so I think next year we have hope to get there.”

  • Newswire : Barack Obama urges world to stand against ‘aggressive nationalism’

    By: Vincent Bevins for The Guardian in Jakarta

    Barack Obama

    Former President Barack Obama
    Barack Obama has called on the world to stand up for tolerance, moderation and respect for others – warning that sectarian politics could lead to chaos and violence.
    The former US president said some countries had adopted “an aggressive kind of nationalism” and “increased resentment of minority groups”, in a speech in Indonesia on Saturday that could be seen as a commentary on the US as well as Indonesia.
    “It’s been clear for a while that the world is at a crossroads. At an inflection point,” Obama said, telling a Jakarta crowd stories of how much the capital had improved since he lived there as a child.
    But he said that increased prosperity had been accompanied by new global problems, adding that as the world confronts issues ranging from inequality to terrorism, some countries – both developed and less developed – had adopted a more aggressive and isolationist stance.
    “If we don’t stand up for tolerance and moderation and respect for others, if we begin to doubt ourselves and all that we have accomplished, then much of the progress that we have made will not continue,” he said.
    “What we will see is more and more people arguing against democracy, we will see more and more people who are looking to restrict freedom of the press, and we’ll see more intolerance, more tribal divisions, more ethnic divisions, and religious divisions and more violence.”
    Obama was born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, but after she married an Indonesian, the family moved to Jakarta in 1967 when he was six, and stayed for four years. The 44th US president made sure the crowd knew he could still speak some Indonesian.
    He also spoke in direct support of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, whose own political movement has recently been rocked by the rise of intolerance in the world’s fourth most-populous country.
    Widodo’s ally, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent widely known as Ahok was recently jailed while serving his term as Jakarta governor for making comments that were allegedly blasphemous.
    Islamist groups had organized mass rallies to demand his imprisonment, and his sentence shocked his many liberal supporters around the country, leading analysts to question whether the stability of Indonesia’s plural democracy might be under threat from racial or religious tensions.
    Obama called Widodo “a man of quiet but firm integrity and someone who sincerely wants to do what’s right for all Indonesians” and then made comments which a delighted crowd interpreted to be critical of how Ahok had been treated.
    “My stepfather … was raised a Muslim but he respected Hindus and he respected Buddhists and he respected Christians,” he said, adding: “If you are strong in your own faith then you should not be worried about someone else’s faith.” The line earned raucous applause.
    Obama never mentioned Donald Trump by name, but he chose a range of topics that could be seen to apply to politics in both Indonesia and the US, including fake news powered by social media, resentment, attacks on institutions, and ignorance of other peoples.
    When asked about Trump’s exit from the Paris climate deal by Dino Patti Djalal, former ambassador to the US and organizer of the Indonesia Diaspora Conference, Obama sought to downplay the move’s impact.
    “First of all, I think it’s important that even though the current US administration has signaled it is going to pull out, technically it’s not out yet,” he said. “Point two is that many of the changes that we locked in during my administration continue.”
    Coming back to the overarching theme of “unity in diversity” – Indonesia’s official national motto – Obama warned again where a different path could lead.
    “Let’s face it, if people do not show respect and tolerance, eventually you have war and conflict. Sooner or later societies break down.”

  • Jimmy Carter broadsides Donald Trump: Republican tapped ‘reservoir of inherent racism’

    By Douglas Ernst – The Washington Times – Tuesday, May 24, 2016

    Jimmy Carter

    Former President Jimmy Carter

    Former President Jimmy Carter pulled no punches against Donald Trump in a recent interview with The New York Times.
    The 39th commander in chief told the newspaper by phone on Monday that Mr. Trump’s Republican presidential campaign is fueled by lingering U.S. racism.
    Mr. Carter, 91, said in February that the billionaire was his favorite Republican candidate because he is “completely malleable.” The former Democrat president now says Mr. Trump “tapped a waiting reservoir there of inherent racism” to succeed.
    “When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights,” Mr. Carter said of the Republican’s plan to deport illegal immigrants and temporarily halt Muslim immigration into the U.S.
    The newspaper also asked Mr. Carter, who is planning to hold a summit of Baptists in Atlanta, Georgia, later this summer, why Mr. Trump’s support among evangelical Christians is so strong.
    “The use of the word ‘evangelical’ is a misnomer. I consider myself an evangelical as well. And obviously, what most of the news reporters thought were evangelicals [over the years] are conservative Republicans,” the former president said.

  • Newswire : Stalled GOP Health Care Bill would have ‘crushed working-class Blacks’

    Written By Lynette Holloway, Newsone
    Health care protest.jpg
    Health Care protest
    In a major blow to Republicans’ ongoing effort to dismantle Obamacare, Senate majority leader on Tuesday postponed a vote on a measure that would have rendered health care treatment unaffordable for working-class Black Americans.
    Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who faced resistance from inside and outside his party, acknowledged that he had more work to do to pull together at least 50 members to vote on the measure, writes The New York Times. It has been tabled until after the July Fourth recess.
    McConnell, known as a formidable deal-maker, made the announcement at a news conference late-Tuesday after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House. McConnell warned warring factions that if they cannot come together, he would be forced to strike a deal with Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer, an equally wily negotiator.
    In short, the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare is a mess. And it’s a good thing because poor Blacks and Whites, who are barely recovering from the great recession, would have been hit hard.
    For months, the media have characterized Trump voters as poor Whites, including miners and steel workers. Alternet notes that the GOP health care plan “crushes working-class Blacks and Whites,” but not middle-class Whites who voted for Trump.
    The failed measure proposed more severe cuts to Medicaid than the House bill, and provided more tax credits and breaks to the wealthiest Americans. At stake is a program that provides low-cost care to mostly poor people. “An estimated 75 million Americans — including children, pregnant women, disabled individuals and elderly people in nursing homes,” writes USA Today.
    Former President Barack Obama condemned the Senate healthcare plan
    Barack Obama sharply condemned the healthcare plan unveiled by Senate Republicans on Thursday as a “massive transfer of wealth” to the rich, at the expense of poor and middle-class Americans.
    In a Facebook post hours after the Republican bill was made public, the former president made some of his most pointed comments since leaving office in defense of what remains the most signature accomplishment of his two terms.
    “The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a healthcare bill,” Obama wrote. “It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America.”
    “Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family, this bill will do you harm,” he added, while highlighting some of the more contentious provisions within the legislation, such as tax breaks to top earners and drug and insurance companies, and the potential gutting of coverage for pre-existing conditions, pregnancy and mental health.
    “Small tweaks over the course of the next couple of weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.”
    Obama has largely kept out of the political fray since his departure from the White House – weighing in on just a handful of Donald Trump’s actions through written statements, such as his successor’s travel ban on refugees and several Muslim-majority countries, and the decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord.
    But Obama’s personal stake in the healthcare debate, and his concern that Trump and Republicans will dismantle the Affordable Care Act, has transcended the other matters that have dominated Washington under the new administration.
    In his post on Thursday, Obama notably echoed Trump’s alleged assertion behind closed doors that the healthcare legislation passed by House Republicans in May was “mean”. Democrats have adopted Trump’s characterization into somewhat of a slogan to rally against the Republican healthcare proposals.
    The Senate bill released on Thursday has already faced some early opposition from conservatives who say it does not go far enough in repealing and replacing Obama’s healthcare law. Obama urged Republicans on Capitol Hill to not simply be driven by meeting a campaign promise, but to instead think about the potential for millions of Americans to lose their insurance. While the Congressional Budget Office is expected to score the Senate legislation by early next week, the House-passed bill would leave 23 million more people uninsured over the next 10 years.
    “I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican party,” Obama said. “Still, I hope that our senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on healthcare or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did.

  • Newswire : Growing number of states reject voter data request from Trump’s election commission

    Voting rights groups have also come out against Kris Kobach’s push to gain information about voters in all 50 states.

    By: Arturo Garcia, Snopes News Service
    Kristen Clarke, Director Lawyers Committee
    Kristen Clarke, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law condemned the national request for voter data

    At least twenty-two states have signaled resistance or rejected a request from President Donald Trump’s administration for data for every registered voter in the U.S.
    The request was submitted via letters to all secretary of state offices in the nation and the District of Columbia by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity on 29 June 2017, seeking information that includes the names, party affiliations, addresses, military statuses and the last four digits of the voters’ Social Security numbers, as well as voting history from 2006 onward.
    Kris Kobach, the commission’s vice-chair and current Kansas secretary of state, has claimed in the past, as has Trump, that U.S. voter fraud is widespread — but without providing evidence. Trump signed an executive order creating the commission in May 2017, which quickly spurred accusations that it would be used to implement, rather than investigate, voter suppression.
    Ten states — California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia — have fully rebuked Kobach’s call for voter data.
    Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican, in a statement of his own said, “They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great State to launch from. Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our State’s right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes.”
    Even Kobach’s home state of Kansas balked, prompting backtracking from his office: “In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available. … Every state receives the same letter, but we’re not asking for it if it’s not publicly available,” Kobach said.
    He did not rule out the possibility of providing that information to the commission in the future. “If the commission decides that they would like to receive Social Security numbers to a secure site in order to remove false positives, then we would have to double check and make sure Kansas law permits,” Kobach said.
    “I know for a fact that this information would be secured and maintained confidentially,” he added in response to security concerns.
    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) made reference to the allegations that led Trump to create the commission in a statement said: “New York refuses to perpetuate the myth voter fraud played a role in our election. We will not be complying with this request and I encourage the Election Commission to work on issues of vital importance to voters, including ballot access, rather than focus on debunked theories of voter fraud.”
    Several other states have responded by saying that they will only share information that is already publicly available.
    Voter advocacy groups have also come out against the commission’s push for access to the data, which it said it wanted by 14 July 2017. League of Women Voters president Chris Carson said in a statement that her group would support any state that refused to comply with Kobach’s request: “There is no justification for this giant fishing expedition. The Commission itself is a distraction from the real issue of voter suppression, and that efforts to “investigate voter fraud” threaten our most fundamental voting rights. This most recent move by Mr. Kobach is an indicator that the so-called Election “Integrity” Commission is not interested in facts, but false accusations and dangerous policy recommendations.”
    Kristen Clarke, Executive Director of The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law also condemned Kobach’s letters and called on his counterparts in other states to “discourage state and local officials” from participating in the commission’s activities: “This meritless inquisition opens the door for a misguided and ill-advised Commission to take steps to target and harass voters and could lead to purging of the voter rolls.”
    Before joining Trump’s administration, Kobach worked as an attorney for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a hardline anti-immigration group. In September 2016, a federal appeals court found that Kobach had provided “precious little” evidence that non-U.S. citizens were engaging in voter fraud.

  • Newswire : NNPA honors Martin Luther King III with lifetime legacy award

    By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

    legacyawards_7247_fallen_web120.jpg(From left-right) Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., president and CEO of the NNPA, Denise Rolark Barnes, outgoing chairman of the NNPA and Dorothy Leavell (far right) honor Martin Luther King III with the NNPA’s Lifetime Legacy Award at the Legacy Awards Gala at the National Harbor in Prince George’s County, Md., on June 23, 2017. (Freddie Allen/AMG/NNPA
    The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) honored Martin Luther King III with the 2017 Lifetime Legacy Award, as the group wrapped up its annual summer conference, at the Gaylord Convention Center at the National Harbor in Maryland.
    King, the oldest son of the iconic civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., said that the tribute tops all others he’s received, because the Black Press has meant a lot to his family, especially his father, as he fought for freedom, justice and equality.
    “The NNPA is one of the most impactful institutions our community has and every week the newspapers of the Black Press reach at least 22 million people in our communities,” said King. “And every week the Black Press tackles issues that we deal with, that we cannot find in the mainstream newspapers.”
    King continued: “The Black Press provides the information that’s needed for African-Americans and if not for the Black Press, I would say that, during the Civil Rights era, my father would not have been successful. The African-American [journalists] had their ears to the ground to what was important in our community.”
    King, who attended the awards ceremony with family members, graduated from his father’s alma mater, Morehouse College, with a degree in political science. While at Morehouse, King was selected by former President Jimmy Carter to serve in the United States delegation to the Republic of Congo for participation in their centennial celebration ceremonies.
    Like his father, King participated in many protests for civil rights and one of the more notable acts of civil disobedience came in 1985 when he was arrested at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C. protesting against Apartheid and for the release of freedom fighter Nelson Mandela.
    “This is a special time,” King said, as he spoke to NNPA members, friends and industry leaders in attendance at the award ceremony.
    Showing a lighter side, King quipped, “I like the word ‘legacy,’ but it means you’re getting older.”
    King also talked about the impact of social media and how it can be difficult to understand the shorthand that some young people use to communicate via text and social platforms like Twitter.
    “I have to ask the kids to tell me what these things mean, because I don’t do Twitter or Facebook,” he said.
    Striking a more serious tone, King, the former president of the legendary Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said that the Black community “must do better.”
    King continued: “We have to educate our community. We, as a community, have the ability to do much more.”
    In an effort to help African-Americans realize and capitalize on the vast spending power in the community, King founded Realizing the Dream, a foundation that is focused on helping community-based organizers to ignite investment in local neighborhoods and to foster peaceful coexistence within America and abroad.
    “If we decide to divest, or even talk about [boycotting] some of the companies where we are spending billions of our dollars…we won’t see insensitivity,” King said.
    Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA, said that the organization was especially proud and delighted to present the prestigious award to King.
    “For decades, more than anyone else, Martin Luther King III has continued to personify and represent the living legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for freedom, justice and equality,” Chavis said. “He has carried on his father’s legacy quite honorably, quite admirable, and quite successfully.”
    In 2008, as former president and CEO of the King Center, King spoke on behalf of then-Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, where he highlighted the need for improved health care, quality education, housing, technology and equal justice.
    King also served on the Board of Directors for the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy and co-founded Bounce TV, the first independently-owned, digital multicast network featuring around-the-clock programming geared towards African-Americans.
    “I remember going to my mother’s alma matter in Ohio and seeing the statue of Horace Mann which was inscribed with the words ‘be ashamed to die until you have won some kind of victory for humanity,’” King said.
    “As a child, those are words that are very powerful. As an adult, I say we can win victory at schools, we can win victory in our places of worship, we can win victory in our cities, our counties, our states, our country and some may win in our world.”
    King continued: “I say, be ashamed to die until you have done something to make your community better.”