Greene County Democrat

Category: Newswire

  • Michelle Obama trolls Trump by tapping her microphone during epic takedown

     

    Carla Herreria Senior Writer, HuffPost Hawaii

     

    michelle-obama-campaigning-for-hillary-clinton

    Michelle Obama campaigning for Hillary Clinton

     

    Michelle Obama may have only recently jumped on Hillary Clinton’s campaign trail, but she has already mastered the art of insulting The Orange One Who Must Not Be Named.

    During a rally for the Democratic presidential nominee in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Tuesday, the first lady executed yet another perfect takedown of Donald Trump― and, again, she didn’t even have to say his name.

    Obama mostly stayed on-script at the rally, calling for a “steady,” “measured” and “honest” leader while denouncing misogyny and “not paying taxes.”

    But she picked up the fire when she went all in on Trump, ragging on his late-night Twitter rant and his disrespect for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, with a tap of her microphone, she burned Trump over his uncanny ability to blame others for his missteps.

    “When [Clinton] gets knocked down, she doesn’t complain,” Obama said before tapping on her microphone. “She doesn’t cry foul. No, she gets right back up, comes back stronger for the people who needs her most.”

    The mic tap was an apparent nod to Trump’s suggestion that he was given a faulty microphone to sabotage his performance during the first presidential debate.

    “When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally,” Obama said to the crowd of about 1,400 people. “And I think we can all agree that someone who’s roaming around at 3 a.m. tweeting should not have their fingers on the nuclear codes.”

    Obama continued her takedown of the GOP nominee by pointing out that Trump is the type of candidate who “implies that veterans who serve our country so bravely are somehow weak because they’re dealing with the wounds of war.”

  • Ailing Obama health care act may have to change to survive

         By ROBERT PEAR, New York Times

    president-obama

    President Obama

    WASHINGTON — The fierce struggle to enact and carry out the Affordable Care Act was supposed to put an end to 75 years of fighting for a health care system to insure all Americans. Instead, the law’s troubles could make it just a way station on the road to another, more stable health care system, the shape of which could be determined on Election Day.

    Seeing a lack of competition in many of the health law’s online insurance marketplaces, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and much of the Democratic Party are calling for more government, not less.

    The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third of the Senate have endorsed a new government-sponsored health plan, the so-called public option, to give consumers an additional choice. A significant number of Democrats, for whom Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the primaries, favor a single-payer arrangement, which could take the form of Medicare for all.

    Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress would go in the direction of less government, reducing federal regulation and requirements so insurance would cost less and no-frills options could proliferate. Mr. Trump would, for example, encourage greater use of health savings accounts, allow insurance policies to be purchased across state lines and let people take tax deductions for insurance premium payments.

    In such divergent proposals lies an emerging truth: Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement will almost certainly have to change to survive. The two parties agree that for too many people, health plans in the individual insurance market are still too expensive and inaccessible.

    “Employer markets are fairly stable, but the individual insurance market does not feel stable at all,” said Janet S. Trautwein, the chief executive of the National Association of Health Underwriters, which represents more than 100,000 agents and brokers who specialize in health insurance. “In many states, the individual market is in a shambles.”

    Mr. Obama himself, while boasting that 20 million people had gained coverage because of the law, acknowledged in July that “more work to reform the health care system is necessary.”

    “Too many Americans still strain to pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their deductibles or pay their monthly insurance bills; struggle to navigate a complex, sometimes bewildering system; and remain uninsured,” Mr. Obama wrote in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

    The marketplace faces a major test in the fourth annual open enrollment season, which starts on Nov. 1, a week before Election Day. In many counties, consumers will see higher premiums and fewer insurers, as Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealth have curtailed their participation in the exchanges, and many of the nonprofit insurance cooperatives, created with federal money, have shut down.

    Mr. Trump has said that Congress must “completely repeal Obamacare,” and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly tried to do so. But parts of the law appear to be here to stay. One such provision, now widely accepted, says that insurers cannot deny coverage because of a person’s medical condition or history.

    For their part, many Democrats are clamoring for a public insurance option, as they did nine years ago.

    “Supporters of the public option warned that private insurance companies could not be trusted to provide reliable coverage or control costs,” said Richard J. Kirsch, who led a grass-roots organization that fought for passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010. “The shrinking number of health insurers is proof that these warnings were spot on.”

    On Sept. 15, Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, introduced a resolution calling for a public option. The measure now has 32 co-sponsors, including the top Senate Democrats: Harry Reid of Nevada, Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

    “You need competition to make the exchanges successful,” Mr. Merkley said in an interview. “A public option guarantees there’s competition in each and every exchange around the country.”

    As they did before the Affordable Care Act was enacted, insurance lobbyists are mobilizing to kill the public option. The main trade group for the industry, America’s Health Insurance Plans, says it would do nothing to stabilize the exchanges, and in an urgent “action alert,” the group asked member companies to lobby against Mr. Merkley’s resolution.

    Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Senate health committee, said the Democrats’ public option plan would compound the problems it seeks to solve.

    “Obamacare exchanges are collapsing because of federal mandates and a lack of flexibility,” Mr. Alexander said. “We need to give states more flexibility and individuals more choices so more people can buy low-cost insurance.”

    Mr. Trump would replace the Affordable Care Act with an assortment of conservative policies, including some that are similar to ideas favored by House Republicans and by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute. But Democrats and some Republicans say that Mr. Trump has not laid out a comprehensive, coherent alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

    Mr. Trump would eliminate the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance. He would encourage the sale of insurance across state lines, in a bid to increase competition. And he would convert Medicaid, now an open-ended entitlement, into a block grant, giving each state a lump sum of federal money to provide health care to low-income people.

  • Former First Lady of two African nations, Graca Machel launches new women’s network

    By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)

    gracamichel_gmichel_web120
    Graça Machel said that the primary mission of WIMN is to amplify the voices of women’s movements, influence governance and promote women’s leadership and contributions in the economic, social, and political development of Africa. (Graça Michel)

     

    In an effort to transform the narrative and negative perceptions of African women and children, Graça Machel, the former first lady of two African nations, recently established a first of its kind Pan African Women in Media Network (WIMN).

    The network of women journalists will work in conjunction with the Graça Machel Trust.

    “The Graça Machel Trust’s Women Rights program is based on our aim to multiply the faces and amplify the voices of women, especially in areas where they are underrepresented,” said Machel, who’s also the founder of the Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique. “Through our women’s networks in agribusiness, finance and ‘Women Creating Wealth,’ we foster links and build a critical mass of highly-qualified and active women across sectors and professions who can work collectively to influence, shape and drive the socio-economic policies to ensure that they achieve economic prosperity and social change.”

    The Graça Machel Trust works across the African continent to amplify women’s movements, influence governance, and advocate for the protection of children’s rights and dignity.

    The Trust consolidates the work of Machel and seeks to build on her legacy by inspiring the younger generation to take up new challenges and create societies that value and care about social justice.

    Machel noted that the primary mission is to amplify the voices of women’s movements, influence governance and promote women’s leadership and contributions in the economic, social, and political development of Africa. The Trust also advocates for the protection of children’s rights and dignity.

    Recognizing the crucial role that media plays in shaping societal attitudes, Machel said it’s important that women are at the center of transformation within the media landscape.

    The new network has also gained the support of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the Black Press that’s comprised of approximately 208 African-American owned newspapers across the United States.

    “The National Newspaper Publishers Association supports and salutes the Graça Machel Trust that effectively empowers African women. When African women are empowered, it results in advancing all African people throughout the world,” said Dr. Benjamin Chavis, the president and CEO of the NNPA.
    “The Diamond Empowerment Fund, co-founded by Russell Simmons, me and others also recognizes the extraordinary global leadership of Graca Machel and the Graca Machel Trust. I vividly remember meeting Graça Machel at her home in Maputo, Mozambique along with her husband South Africa President Nelson Mandela and my colleague Russell Simmons in 2006.” Chavis continued: “We discussed the ongoing struggle and movement to transform Africa for progress and the liberation of all who stand for freedom and equality.”

    Prior to her marriage to Mandela, Machel was the wife of Mozambique President Samora Machel. She also served for more than a decade as that country’s minister of education and culture.

    Machel said that WIMN will drive coordinated messaging and build awareness on issues related to health, education, and women’s economic empowerment, which will have a positive effect on women and children.

    “Given the influential role that media plays in shaping societal attitudes, the network seeks to change the present narrative of women that presents them as powerless victims and ignores the many positive stories and successes,” Machel added. “When economically empowered, women take control of their lives, set their own agendas, provide solutions to their problems and challenges, and develop self-reliance.”

    Machal added: “To build a strong and equitable future for all Africans, we acknowledge the fundamental contribution of women and ensure that we create a supportive and enabling environment where they are able to fully participate and benefit.”

    The network will also create an inter-generational platform to allow young talented female journalists to participate and work alongside the continent’s more seasoned veterans. WIMN will comprise an initial group of about 30 to 40 women journalists, bloggers and influencers, officials said in a statement.

    “Women and children’s issues have tended to make headlines more as victims that are helpless, abused and exploited yet women and children have, over time, been capable of so much more, having overcome many obstacles and excelled in many sectors of the economy and society,” said WIMN board co-chair Susan Makore. “The amazing stories need to find more expression in our media. Therefore, I hope to do my part in ensuring that key stories that highlight and celebrate the various facets of children and women’s activities across all sectors are given prominence in the media by working with my colleagues that run media houses, especially in Zimbabwe where I hail from.”

    Bronwyn Nielsen, the co-chair of the WIMN advisory board, said that Africa’s youth and female dividends are at the core of the continent’s future and, with the right support. “It is a fact the women and children who can positively impact the future from an economic growth and development perspective,” said Nielsen. “I look forward to working with my fellow board members and all the members of this privileged network to jointly leverage our circles of influence under the esteemed guidance of Mrs. Machel to drive this agenda deep across the continent with both speed and passion.”

     

  • Trump International Hotel spray-painted with ‘Black Lives Matter’ message

    By Joe Heim , Washington Post

    graffitti-at-trump-hotel  Message painted on entrance to Trump hotel in Washington, D. C.

     

    D.C. Police are searching for the man who spray-painted the walls in front of a side entrance to the new Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington with political messages late Saturday afternoon.

    The messages – “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice” (and the word Peace with a line through it) were spray-painted in black. The word “Van” was spray-painted in red below Black Lives Matter.

    A video of a man spray-painting the message spread on social media. In the video, the man can be seen spray-painting the Black Lives Matter message and then trotting down the hotel’s steps and walking across 12th Street, NW.

    A picture of a police officer photographing the graffiti was also widely shared.

    Police were called at 4:03 p.m. Saturday to investigate a report of destruction of private and public property, according to  MPD spokeswoman Aquita Brown. She said police are looking for a male suspect. They are not releasing any other information at this time.

    A spokeswoman for Trump International Hotel declined to comment. By Sunday afternoon, sheets of plywood had been placed in front of the messages and a security guard stood at the top of the steps.

    The $212 million 263-room hotel, located on Pennsylvania Avenue just a few blocks from the White House, opened with much fanfare on Sept. 12. Rooms at the luxury hotel begin at $895 a night. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has often remarked that he will run the country the same way that he has run the building of this hotel: ahead of schedule and under budget.

    At a March news conference in the hotel’s lobby, Trump said, “It’s a great thing for the country, it’s a great thing for Washington.”

    Trump’s new Washington monument is a luxury hotel his blue-collar supporters can’t afford.

     

  • With Flint victory, African American lawmakers increase their clout in Congress

     

    By Karoun Demirjian and Mike DeBonis , Washington Post

    black-congressional-caucusMembers of the Black Congressional Caucus speak out on issues, from left are: Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Rep. Marcia L. Fudge, D-Ohio, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

    As the country’s first Black president prepares to leave the White House, African-American members of Congress are exerting increasing influence on Capitol Hill.

    The Congressional Black Caucus has emerged as the driving force behind several dramatic standoffs in Washington this year – most recently spurring successful efforts to secure funding for the water crisis in Flint, Mich. as part of a budget deal that sent lawmakers home for the elections.

    “Our minority caucuses do not want to vote for a bill that does not have Flint in it,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters, just hours before striking the deal to secure at least $170 million in Flint funding. “I don’t think our black caucus will vote for it…without Flint.”

    The CBC has always been an influential faction of House Democrats, but its power is rising as Congress struggles to respond to a series of racially charged police shootings of African-Americans around the country.  The 43-member caucus — which includes only one Republican, Utah Rep. Mia Love — now intends to capitalize on that influence to force action on issues of importance to black Americans.

    In addition to pushing the budget to the brink over Flint funding, CBC leaders like Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) helped organize a nationally televised sit-in in June demanding votes on gun control legislation.

                “The extent to which you get agreement on Flint essentially means that we are educating our caucus” of House Democrats, said Rep. Jim Clyburn (S.C.), the House’s No. 3 Democrat. “I will use that success, to show we have not just zeroed in on this, in the next Congress.”

    Clyburn said that despite the incidents playing out across the country, and the racially-charged language that has taken over the debate surrounding it, the country is better off than it was when Obama took office.

    “President Obama took the baton from us, and now he’s about to give it back,” Clyburn said. “He’s handing the baton to us with the country in a much better place than it was when we handed it to him.”

    Black lawmakers trace the current upswing in influence to a bitter debate over allowing Confederate flags on federal grounds forced Republicans to yank a spending bill off the House floor.

    New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries called that episode, and the 25-hour sit-in over gun control, “probably the two most dramatic moments that we’ve had in the House since the government shutdown” in 2013.

                Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a former CBC chair, said that the House leadership is taking notice of the group’s increased clout.

    “The leadership is far more sensitive on the issue of inclusion and making sure that everybody’s voice counts than in previous times here in Congress,” Cleaver said. “So it’s not like ‘Oh, here they come again.’ It was like: ‘We know you guys are interested and we want you to come up and talk.’”

    Black lawmakers are also responding to a political atmosphere in which GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump charged that Black Lives Matter protests are driving the killings by police and said that black communities are “in the worst shape they’ve ever been.”

    And they’ve spoken out, loudly, when some of their colleagues — most recently North Carolina Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger — have made racially inept remarks. In televised comments to the BBC, Pittenger said that black protesters “hate white people” — comments that CBC members called “ignorant” and “beyond the pale.”

    CBC Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said last week that Pittenger had personally and sincerely “apologized multiple times” for what he said, and that the CBC is “ready to move on.”

                But the episode, as well as the legislative muscle the CBC has been flexing, illustrate a key element of the group’s strategy.

    “When we are united we are a force to be reckoned with,” said Butterfield said.

    Members say being in the House minority has made it easier for Democrats to band together. “We don’t control either body here, and we’ve been forced to work better together,” Clyburn said. “As a result, I think you’ve seen some better results.”

    Black lawmakers said they now intend to focus on economic solutions in other majority-black cities. They said their next fights will be for resources to expand access to housing, education, and the sort of community revitalization programs that attract business, tax dollars, and better water, sewage, roads and bridges as a result.

    Clyburn expressed optimism that such changes were within reach, pointing to recent bipartisan support for a CBC-championed anti-poverty plan, which Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have both endorsed.

    But in order to expand their influence, Clyburn and other CBC members are acutely aware that their challenge is to convince their colleagues that the issues that matter to African-Americans should matter to all Americans.

    Poverty, they believe, is an area where that should be an easy sell. “We have had the kind of experiences like the people in Flint, so we can personalize this stuff in a way that a lot of other members can’t,” Clyburn said. “But it’s time for us to get beyond this color business…this is not about black communities, this is about needy communities.”

    White communities in places like Kentucky and West Virginia are just as economically bad if not worse off than many poor black communities, Clyburn pointed out. Two-thirds of poor counties in America are represented by Republicans, he added, expressing frustration that “the moment you start talking about poverty, the face of poverty’s always black.”

     

  • Harry Belafonte is really concerned about Trump supporters

    By: Brennan Williams Pop Culture Editor, The Huffington Post

    harry-belafonte-on-trump Harry Belafonte on CNN

     

    During Saturday’s episode of “CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield,” the legendary entertainer shared his latest thoughts on this year’s election.

    Harry Belafonte, who initially endorsed Bernie Sanders during the primary season, has shifted his support to Hillary Clinton.

    The legendary entertainer appeared on Saturday’s episode of “CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield” and shared his thoughts on the election season, including his concern over Donald Trump’s number of supporters.

    “I think America sits at its most critical space I’ve every known our country to be,” he said to Whitfield. “I think it’s one thing to flippantly dismiss Donald Trump as some phenomena or some peculiar phenomena. I think Americans think of him very seriously. I’m not as concerned about him and the distortions of his character, as I have about the fact that obviously 13 million people have declared themselves committed to his ideology, and committed to his philosophy. That’s a big number.”

    When asked what impact he thinks the election will have on the current climate, Belafonte summed it up when he said there’s no “ambivalence” between the ideologies of the two candidates.

    Well. He’s right about that.

  • Hillary Clinton speaks about systemic racism at historic Black North Carolina church

    By: Carol Kuruvilla Associate Religion Editor, Huffington Post

     

    Nine-year-old Zianna Oliphant joins U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the pulpit at the Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte
    Nine-year-old Zianna Oliphant joins U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the pulpit at the Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States October 2, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

    Nine-year-old Zianna Oliphant joins U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the pulpit at the Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States October 2, 2016.

     

    Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton paid a visit to a historic black church on Sunday, mixing Bible verses with frank talk about the “implicit bias” and systemic racism that still exists in America.

    Clinton took to the pulpit at Little Rock AME Zion Church, a church in Charlotte, North Carolina, whose members have been involved in protests against the police shooting of Keith Scott, a 43-year-old black man, on Sept. 20.

    The candidate spoke about Scott’s death, and the death of Terence Crutcher, a black father from Tulsa, Oklahoma who was killed by police days earlier.  She also mentioned the stories of two young residents of Charlotte, Taje Gaddy, 10, and Zianna Oliphant, 9, who testified before Charlotte’s City Council last week.

    “I wouldn’t be able to stand it if my grandchildren had to be scared and worried the way too many children across our country feel right now. But because my grandchildren are white, because they are the grandchildren of a former president and secretary of state, let’s be honest here, they won’t face the kind of fear that we heard from the children testifying before the city council,” Clinton said during the speech.

    Clinton invited Oliphant, who was in the audience, to stand next to her on the pulpit ― lamenting about how the little girl who should be “dreaming about all the wonderful things that her future holds for her” is instead “talking about graveyards” and the violence facing her community.

    While saying that the families of fallen police officers “deserve our prayers,” Clinton acknowledged that “implicit bias” against people of color has a substantial impact on black communities. She sees it in the way black men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, how they are more sentenced to longer prison terms than white men for the same crime.

    “We need to make sure our police officers are trained in de-escalating tense situations,” she said, receiving a round of applause from the church.

    Quoting Proverbs 29:18, which reads, “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” Clinton called for a common vision of an America where every child has the chance to “live up to their God-given potential.”

    “God loves us all, right? And we are called to care for and cherish each other,” she said. “Protecting all of God’s children is America’s calling.”

    Clinton was scheduled to visit Charlotte one week ago, but postponed the trip after Scott’s death. Polls indicate that the race between Clinton and her Republican opponent Donald Trump is tight in North Carolina, which has traditionally been a red state.

    Clinton hasn’t been doing as well as Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012 with the state’s younger voters. Still, according to The Associated Press, if Clinton wins North Carolina, there’s little that Trump could do to stop her from winning the presidency.

    During the service, Little Rock AME Zion’s spiritual leader, Rev. Dr. Dwayne Walker, encouraged his congregation to get out and vote. The church had placed voter registration cards at every entrance to the building. “We want to make sure that everyone here is registered and will vote,” Walker said.

  • Alabama New South Coalition to hold Fall Convention on Saturday, October 1 in Wetumpka

    The Alabama New South Coalition (ANSC) will hold its Fall Convention on Saturday, October 1, 2016 at the Wind Creek Casino Entertainment Center meeting room in Wetumpka, Alabama. Registration begins at 8:00 AM with breakfast and the convention convenes at 8:45 AM.
    The theme of the convention is “Lifting our Communities; Saving Ourselves with Our Vote”. Most of the meeting will deal with voter education, registration and get-out-the-vote planning for the critical General Election on November 8, 2016, which is less than forty days away.
    The meeting features a panel discussion on Voter Registration, Education and Mobilization to help prepare and encourage ANSC members statewide to actively participate in the upcoming elections. Senator Hank Sanders of Selma and a founder of ANSC will moderate the panel.
    Among the panelists are: Rev. Kenneth Glasgow from Dothan, Alabama who has been an activist in promoting the restoration of voting rights for the previously incarcerated; Jerome Gray, a community expert on voter involvement; Attorney Faya Rose Toure of Selma, who has worked on many grassroots electoral and community leadership development efforts; two Greene countians – Dr. Carol Zippert and Commissioner Lester Brown complete the panel and will share their experiences.
    The ANSC will adjourn its meeting to hold a meeting of its sister organization, the Alabama New South Alliance (ANSA), which will screen and endorse national and statewide candidates for the coming election. ANSA endorsed Hillary Clinton for the March 1 Democratic Primary and is expected to endorse the Clinton-Kaine ticket for the November General Election as well as Congressional and statewide candidates who will be on the ballot.
    Absentee balloting is already underway in Alabama for the November elections and October 24 is the last day to register to be able to vote in November.

    The ANSC Luncheon speaker is John Tanner a retired Chief of the Voting Rights Division in the U. S. Justice Department who will speak on voting rights issues in the aftermath of the Shelby vs. Holder Supreme Court decision which gutted the Section 4 and 5 pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
    John Tanner began his work in voting rights as a teenager in Birmingham during the mid-1960s, when he assisted the SCLC and other groups with voter registration drives and other activities.
    After college and the Army, he joined the Voting Section of the Justice Department as a paralegal and went to law school at night at American University. Upon graduation he was accepted as an attorney in the Department under the Honors Program, and for many years was the principal Department of Justice attorney for voting rights enforcement in Alabama.
    In 1995, he moved to prosecute police brutality and other federal criminal civil rights violations with the Department, and was on the National Church Arson Task Force.
    Mr. Tanner returned to the Voting Section in 2002 and became Section Chief in 2005. As Section Chief he led the Voting Section in filing the highest number of lawsuits in its history.
    After retiring from the Justice Department, Mr. Tanner began a private law practice from his home in the District of Columbia in which he has represented minority voters in Alabama, Texas, and Georgia.
    He also has taught courses and lectured on voting rights and civil rights at the University of Alabama Honors College, Alabama State University, the Cumberland School of Law, and Baylor Law School. He has published numerous articles on voting rights and was the Aaron Henry Lecturer at Mississippi State Valley University. He is a Life Member of the NAACP.
    Mr. Tanner has been recognized for his work by a number of African American community groups in Mississippi and Alabama, and by the City Council of the District of Columbia. He also received numerous Department of Justice awards, including the John Doar Award, the Civil Rights Division’s highest honor.
    All members and supporters of ANSC are invited to attend the meeting. Registration fee is $25.00, which covers breakfast, lunch and all materials. For more information contact Ms. Shelley Fearson, ANSC Coordinator in Montgomery at 334/262-0932 or AlNewSouth@aol.com.

  • Local DST Chapter and Harambe Youth sponsor student voter registration drive

    delta

    Shown L to R assisting students in registering to vote: Alfretta Crawford, Marva Smith, Tameshia Porter and Nancy Cole. Not shown are Carol Zippert and Alphonzo Morton, III.

    The Greene County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. along with Harambe Community Youth Organization sponsored a voter registration day for eligible students at Greene County High School on Tuesday, September 27, 2016. The volunteers assisted 24 students in completing their voter registration forms. Arrangements will be made to further assist students in acquiring an official voters ID if they do not have a driver’s license.
    Once the applications are processed, the newly registered students will be sent a card from the county registrar’s office validating their registration and indicating the individual’s voting place.
    Students who will be 18 years of age before the November 8 national election were also allowed to complete a registration form. The local registrar’s office noted that these applications will be fully processed once the individual reaches the lawful age.
    September 27, 2016 was designated as National Voter Registration Day. The purpose of designating such a day is to increase participation in the voting process, especially with a presidential election scheduled for November 8 of this year. Many Americans don’t vote because they miss registration deadlines or they don’t know how to register to vote. October 24 is the last day to register for the Nov 8 elections.
    This special effort of the local DST Chapter and Harambe Organization assures that young persons in our community eligible to vote will be prepared to exercise their right and duty as an active voter in the upcoming state and national election on November 8.

    Andrea Perry serves as President of the Greene County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Florence Williams is Social Action Chairperson. Alphonzo Morton, III and Carol Zippert are Co-Coordinators of Harambe.

     

  • Federal Judge who ended New York’s ‘Stop-And-Frisk Policy’ slams Trump’s idea to bring it back

    By: Cristian Farias Legal Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post

     

    Shira A. Scheindlin
    In this courtroom drawing, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin listens to proceedings from the bench during the sentencing of arms Russian dealer Viktor Bout, Thursday, April 5, 2012, in New York. Scheindlin sentenced Bout to 25 years in prison on terrorism charges that grew from a U.S. sting operation. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)

    Judge Shira Scheindlin, seen in a 2012 courtroom sketch, found “overwhelming proof” that stop-and-frisk practices discriminated against people of color. She wrote a 198 page ruling condemning the practice.

    NEW YORK ― Shira Scheindlin, the federal judge who ruled three years ago that the New York City Police Department’s aggressive stop-and-frisk practices were unconstitutional, had a few words about Donald Trump’s proposal to institute a similar policy nationwide.

    Trump’s idea sounded “so retrograde and so non-commonsensical,” she told The Huffington Post in an interview while on vacation. “You really wonder about this man’s level of knowledge,” added Scheindlin, who stepped down from the bench in May and is now of counsel at a New York law firm.

    At a town hall event on Wednesday, and in the first national debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump said he “would do stop and frisk” to address crime in black communities. He claimed that the tactic had “worked incredibly well” in New York ― evidently unaware of Scheindlin’s ruling that the way the NYPD did it actually amounted to racial profiling.

    “Why would you call for instituting a failed policy across the United States?” said Scheindlin.

    Trump also didn’t seem to grasp that as president he would have little power to micromanage policing, which is chiefly the states’ domain.

    Floyd v. City of New York was a long-running class action case charging that the NYPD’s practice of stopping, questioning and frisking thousands of New Yorkers without reasonable suspicion ― the vast majority of them black or Latino ― violated the Constitution. The 10-week trial in Scheindlin’s court offered dramatic testimony and thousands of exhibits.

    The judge then issued a 198-page ruling that served as a damning indictment of the city’s police department ― and then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly ― for targeting communities of color under a policy that did little to curb crime or violence.

    “The city’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner,” Scheindlin wrote. “In their zeal to defend a policy that they believe to be effective, they have willfully ignored overwhelming proof that the policy of targeting ‘the right people’ is racially discriminatory.”

    Thanks to that decision, the NYPD now has a court-ordered monitor to make sure that updated guidelines for police stops and initiatives such as body-worn cameras are being implemented responsibly and with input from community groups.

    Reflecting on her ruling today ― and Trump’s praise for what it condemned ― Scheindlin still maintains that stop-and-frisk tactics served “no law enforcement benefit” in New York and “did not reduce crime in any way.”

    As for the Republican presidential nominee’s unsupported notion that such a policy would somehow reduce gun violence by getting firearms off the streets, Scheindlin said the evidence collected in the Floyd trial told a very different story.

    “Very few guns were seized ― 1.5 percent of all the stops resulted in the seizure of any contraband, which is a very tiny number,” she said. “But on top of that, we have no idea if it deterred folks from carrying guns.”

    The more the judge pondered Trump’s proposal and how he might make it work ― could he, say, use the U.S. Department of Justice to condition federal funding on local police embracing stop and frisk? ― the more the exercise seemed like a fool’s errand. “I doubt that he thought it through to that extent,” she said.