The Greene County Democrat

Category: School

  • Ben Carson sworn-in as Trump’s only Black cabinet pick

    By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Contributor
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    Dr. Ben Carson (left) was sworn in as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday, March 2. Carson’s wife along with his 5-year-old granddaughter, Tesora held the Bible. (Shevry Lassiter/The Washington Informer)

    The swearing-in of all the primary members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet is just about complete.

    Most of Trump’s cabinet—from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross—are rich, White and male.

    On Thursday, March 2, retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson broke the mold with his swearing-in as Housing and Urban Development secretary, officially becoming the only African-American in Trump’s cabinet.

    The former GOP presidential candidate was confirmed by a 58-41 vote, leaving just four of Trump’s 22 cabinet-level nominees still unsworn.

    “Right now, our country is the patient and it’s not a Democrat or a Republican patient..It’s an American patient,” Carson said at his swearing-in as his wife, Lacena and granddaughter Tesora held the Bible. “We have a duty to use the gifts that God has given all of us in order to heal that patient.”

    Carson, 65, was born into an impoverished Detroit family, but ultimately became a popular neurosurgeon who ran for president last year winning the

    In January, he vowed to begin his job at HUD by going on a listening tour before developing any long-term plans for the department, which has more than 8,000 employees and a $50 billion budget.

    In February, during Black History Month, Carson joined Trump for a tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture where the president said Carson would work very closely with him.

    “HUD has a meaning far beyond housing,” Trump said. “If properly done, it’s a meaning that’s as big as anything there is.”

    Carson, whose mother at times received food stamps to provide for her family, grew up surrounded by some of the housing assistance programs he will now oversee.

    “The New York Times” reported that, rather than embrace the programs that once sustained his family and the families around him, Carson adopted standard Republican beliefs that too much government help—both in desegregating neighborhoods and in lifting people from poverty—can discourage people from working hard.

    Carson recently had to correct statements which he made that suggested Black people who were brought involuntarily to be enslaved were equated with other immigrants seeking opportunity.

    Carson was awarded a scholarship to Yale University, and at 33, he was named director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. He later became an author and a philanthropist supporting scholarships for young, often impoverished students.

    “Housing discrimination continues to be a significant problem in this country, unfairly limiting people’s choices about where to live,” Lisa Rice, executive vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said in a statement. “We look to Secretary Carson to marshal the resources of the department he leads to combat this problem, and to fight all forms of housing discrimination.”

  • 10 million may lose health insurance coverage under GOP’s Obamacare replacement plan, S&P says

    By: Dan Mangan | CNB

    Between 6 million and 10 million people would lose health insurance coverage if a Republican proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act becomes law, a new report estimates.
    The top end of those losses, or 10 million people, is equal to half of the 20 million or so people who have gained coverage in the past seven years under Obamacare.
    The sobering estimate came from S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday, less than a full day after House GOP leaders released their plan for gutting key elements of the ACA, and replacing it with new rules.
    S&P Global Ratings said it expected that if the plan were approved, there would be a decline in enrollment in the individual health insurance plan market of between 2 million and 4 million people.
    There also would be a decline of between 4 million and 6 million people in the nation’s Medicaid system after 2020 to 2024, according to the report.
    But profitability among U.S. insurers “will likely improve,” the company said, pointing to the fact that the replacement plan “can result in an improved risk pool in the individual market.”
    The report said that the replacement plan would likely increase the affordability of individual insurance plans for younger adults, and reduce the affordability of those plans “for the older population.”
    S&P Global Ratings also said it expected there would be a “large difference between states both in terms of insured rates,” that is the percentage of people with health coverage, “and benefits covered by insurance plans.”

    The report is certain to be used by supporters of Obamacare in their efforts to defeat the Republican plan and keep most, if not all, of the ACA intact as the law of the land.
    The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has yet to “score” the plan, which would analyze both the proposal’s costs to the federal government, and its effect on the number of people insured in the United States.
    The ACA has been credited with driving down the nation’s uninsured rate to record low levels through the creation of government-run marketplaces for individual insurance plans, and by expanding Medicaid eligibility standards to more poor adults than previously were covered.
    The GOP proposal calls for ending the ACA rule requiring most Americans to have some form of health coverage or pay a fine. It also calls for replacing Obamacare’s system of subsidies for premiums for plans purchased on government-run marketplaces with refundable tax credits that can be used to buy coverage both on and off those marketplaces.
    And the proposal would freeze the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid benefits to nearly all poor adults in 31 states by 2020, and switch the way the federal government funds the Medicaid programs of states to a block grant system.

  • “#DayWithoutAWoman”: for domestic and low-wage workers, the stakes are higher than ever

    By: Ai-Jen Poo, Glamour Magazine

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    On March 8 women from every part of the country and the economy will rise together to participate in #DayWithoutAWoman, also known as the Women’s Strike. A follow-up to the historic Women’s March on January 21, #DayWithoutAWoman will fall on International Women’s Day, which honors the social, political, and economic contributions of women globally.

    I sometimes ask domestic workers to imagine what would happen if every nanny, house cleaner, and home care worker in the country decided to go on strike for one day. I ask them to reflect on all the children, seniors, and families who would be touched, and then to think about how those families’ workplaces would be affected—the business people, lawyers, and doctors, all the people who couldn’t work because no one was there to support their needs. The response to this question is often quiet concern for the people they work for, followed by animated banter as they imagine chaos in all the households trying to manage without them. Though society doesn’t value care and cleaning in the home as “real” work, the workers themselves know that their daily work is important, even fundamental.
    Until now, I haven’t posed the question of “a day without domestic workers” in preparation for an actual strike. I’ve asked because it’s rare that we as women, particularly women whose wages are never quite enough to pay the bills, ever think about our collective power in the economy, much less what we could achieve if we directed that power collectively. But in this new political era, it’s time that women do more than simply recognize our power—we must organize it.
    On March 8 women from every part of the country and the economy will rise together to participate in #DayWithoutAWoman, also known as the Women’s Strike. A follow-up to the historic Women’s March on January 21, #DayWithoutAWoman will fall on International Women’s Day, which honors the social, political, and economic contributions of women globally. Originally named International Working Women’s Day back in 1909, March 8 highlights how women’s work—paid and unpaid—drives the economy worldwide. There is a long, yet little-known, history of global women’s activism on this day. For example, on March 8, 1975, the Icelandic women’s strike set the stage for the election of the first woman president in the world, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.
    At its heart, a strike is an action that workers take to disrupt “business as usual.” Strikes both shine a light on injustice and demonstrate—to the strikers and to everyone else—the collective power to change the status quo. If ever there were a time for women to throw a wrench in things, it’s now. We are nearly half of the entire workforce. And we still provide more than 70 percent of the unpaid family care in the United States. We are also a majority of the consumer base (over 70 percent) in this country. It’s our work and our dollars that create wealth for the winners in this economy—from Uber to Walmart.
    As much as some of us may like our jobs, we still face pay inequity, lack of respect, discrimination, and harassment, and lack of access to opportunity for advancement and security. At a time when we should be making progress at light speed on all of these issues, we face powerful opposition, from the government to society at large.
    For women in low-wage jobs like domestic work, the stakes are higher than ever. Women make up two-thirds of the nearly 20 million workers in low-wage jobs—defined as jobs that typically pay $10.10 per hour or less, according to a report from the National Women’s Law Center. Women of color are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage jobs; nearly half of all women in the low-wage workforce are women of color. Home care jobs, for example, are the fastest growing occupation in the economy today, and are overwhelmingly dominated by women, disproportionately women of color and immigrants. Their median annual income? $13,000 per year.
    It’s time for #DayWithoutAWoman. Women from all walks of life will be participating—and there are many ways to participate. Organizers are calling on us to choose among three options: Don’t work, don’t buy things, and wear red. Domestic workers will be participating by wearing red to work. As is the case with many low-wage workers who lack job security, most domestic workers cannot afford to take a day off, or they could risk losing their jobs if they do.
    Those who can take the day off will join restaurant workers, retail workers, and others for the Women Workers Rising solidarity rally at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. They will call for fairness in our economy, beginning with the most vulnerable (and increasingly targeted) among us, including poor women, transgender women, women with disabilities, and Black, Muslim and immigrant women. They will be joined by women in more than 40 countries worldwide.
    Each one of these actions helps tell the story of the unrealized power we as women hold to shape our our society. When we don’t work, our absence has a ripple effect, because our work is critical to every sector of the economy and should never be taken for granted. When we don’t shop, businesses suffer. Let Wednesday be the day that we find each other (look for the red!) and commit to acting in solidarity. We can leverage our untapped power to take back our democracy and make our economy work for women—and our loved ones—once and for all.
    Ai-jen Poo is the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and codirector of the Caring Across Generations campaign.

  • Bingo facilities contribute $273,624.87 to local agencies

    bingoShown above Chief Derick Coleman, Bingo Clerk Emma Jackson, Bingo Clerk Minnie Byrd, Sheriff Jonathan Benison, Sharon Washington representing the Greene County Board of Education, Brenda Burke representing the Greene County Commission, Forkland City Councilman Willie Sashington, and Town of Union City Councilwoman Louise Harkness

    On Wednesday, February 20, 2017, Greene County Sheriff Department distributed $273,624.87 in monthly bingo allocations from the four licensed gaming operations in the county. The recipients of the monthly distributions from bingo gaming designated by Sheriff Jonathan Benison in his Bingo Rules and Regulations include the Greene County Commission, the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, the cities of Eutaw, Forkland, Union and Boligee and the Greene County Board of Education. Assessments are for the month of January 2017.
    Greenetrack, Inc. gave a total of $93,424.87 to the following: Greene County Commission, $37,369.95; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $14,013.73; City of Eutaw, $7,006.87; Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each, $4,671.24; Greene County Board of Education, $21,020.60. Green Charity (Center for Rural Family Development) gave a total of $60,200 to the following: Greene County Commission, $24,080; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $9,030; City of Eutaw, $4,515; and the Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each, $3,010; Greene County Board of Education, $13,545.
    Frontier (Dream, Inc.) gave a total of $60,000 to the following: Greene County Commission, $24,000; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $9,000; City of Eutaw, $4,500; and the Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each, $3,000; Greene County Board of Education, $13,500.
    River’s Edge (TennTom Community Outreach) gave a total of $60,000 to the following: Greene County Commission, $24,000; Greene County Sheriff’s Department, $9,000; City of Eutaw, $4,500; and the Towns of Forkland, Union and Boligee each, $3,000; Greene County Board of Education, $13,500.

  • February Eutaw City Council meetings deal with merger of housing authorities, vicious dogs and buying new vehicles

    city-councilThe Eutaw City Council met on February 14 and 28 to conduct business. The main issues dealt with were the merger of the Eutaw and Greene County Housing Authorities, implementing ordinances on vicious dogs in the city and the leasing of three new SUV’s for use by the police and mayor.
    The City of Eutaw has a Housing Authority (EHA) that handles Carver Circle and other housing within the city. The Greene County Housing Authority (GCHA) was established to develop housing in the county. The GCHA administers the 200 houses in Branch Heights. Branch Heights was annexed into the city of Eutaw in the early 2000’s.
    HUD which funds both authorities – EHA and GCHA – wrote to both housing authorities, starting in October of 2015, that they needed to consolidate their staffs and operations into one housing authority serving the area. The two five member boards have been meeting for several months to work out a merger planning which would keep a ten member board appointed by both the City and the County Commission.
    James “Dee” Powell who is the chairperson of the Eutaw Housing Authority Board says, “Our boards have agreed upon a merger plan, that preserves a board appointed by the City and the County; agrees to preserve the employment of both directors and the staff and leaves open the possibility of building other housing in Forkland, Boligee, Union and other communities in Greene County beyond Eutaw.”
    Powell says that once Mayor Raymond Steele was elected in October, “The Mayor decided that since all the public housing was in Eutaw, that he, as Mayor of Eutaw, should name all of the members of the new merged housing authority. He insisted on this even though three of the Commissioners from Districts 1, 2 and 3 take in parts of the city as well.”
    Mayor Steele says that he is following the law, governing housing authorities and that the only authorities permitted are those serving cities and thus he has the power to appoint all of the board members.
    At the February 14 meeting, the Eutaw City Council, at the recommendation of its Attorney, Ken Aycock, agreed to seek an Alabama State Attorney General’s opinion on the statute governing housing authorities and who had the legal rights and power to appoint the new merged housing authority board.
    At the February 14th meeting, the Eutaw City Council learned that Mayor Steele had removed some of the EHA board members appointed by former Mayor Hattie Edwards in the final weeks of her term. These appointments were never brought before the Eutaw City Council because the Council did not have a quorum in its final October meeting before power shifted to the newly elected Mayor Steele and council members.
    At the February 14 meeting, the Mayor said he replaced Ms. Faye Tyree and Ms. Janet Cockrell who were appointed to the EHA by Mayor Edwards. He replaced Ms. Tyree with Ms. Bertha Cockrell. When Ms. Tyree confronted Mayor Steele about her letter of termination, he said that her appointment was never made official in the minutes, so he could dismiss her because she was never officially appointed. The Mayor also suspended funding from the West Alabama Regional Commission for a part-time position that Ms. Tyree was serving in, which meant she lost her position.
    Things were further confused because newly elected Councilwoman LaTasha Johnson was serving as an EHA residential board member until her election to the City Council.
    Mayor Edwards tried to replace her on the board before she officially resigned.
    At the February 14th meeting, Dee Powell said he requested to be put on the agenda to discuss the board merger but was not placed on the agenda. After some discussion, the Mayor and Council agreed to place him on the agenda for the February 28 meeting.
    At the February 28 meeting, Dee Powell, who is the EHA Chair explained the efforts to merge the housing authorities and accused Mayor Steele of bad faith in saying that if things didn’t go the Mayor’s way then there would be no merger. Powell also questioned the Mayor’s role in changing the EHA board members without consulting the board. “We need to look out for the welfare of the tenants of these housing developments,” said Powell.
    Mayor Steele said he was just trying to do things according to the law and awaiting the Attorney General’s opinion on the legality of the merger. The Mayor asked the City Council to approve the selection of Jackie Allen to replace LaTasha Johnson, as the resident member, and Bertha Hunter to replace Veronica Jones. The City Council approved these changes.

    Vicious dogs ordinance

    Another contentious issue came up about vicious dogs in the city. After a Thanksgiving incident where Channel Glenn’s pit bull dogs attacked two city residents and sent them to the hospital for care, the City Attorney sent Glenn a letter, which contained the City ordinance on vicious dogs. The ordinance states that “the dogs must be kept in an enclosure that is 300 feet from any public park, playground, public building or residence of another”. The letter indicates that Ms. Glenn’s dogs are in violation of this city ordinance,
    In the public comment section of the City Council meeting, Ms. Glenn angrily charged that the City had “inflated” the ordinance since she received it some time ago and asked for an investigation. She also argued that people had breached her fence and that was why the dogs attacked them. When the police chief tried to counter her arguments, she stormed out of the meeting.
    In other business, the Eutaw City Council approved the purchase of three sewage pumps for the lift stations at Boligee, Lower Gainesville Road and the Lagoon. The pumps will cost $5-8,000 each.
    The City also approved the leasing of three new SUV’s for $2,300 a month. Two are for the Eutaw Police Department and one for the Mayor. Several Council members including Sheila Smith and LaJeffrey Carpenter were opposed to the Mayor receiving one of the new cars. The City Council also approved the sale of old vehicles after they are advertised.

  • Bridge Crossing Jubilee to go forward as planned for March 2-6, 2017 in Selma

    At a recent press conference at the Alabama State House, Senator Hank Sanders of Selma said the Bridge Crossing Jubilee celebration commemorating the 1965 Bloody Sunday March for Voting Rights will go forward as planned with some small changes.
    The Bridge Crossing Jubilee consists of 40 or more events over the five-day period, including workshops, mass meetings, a parade, golf tournament, breakfasts, dinners, films and other events related to voting rights. The Jubilee includes a re-enactment of the 1965 march from Browns Chapel Church through downtown Selma and crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge and a rally on the Montgomery side of the bridge.
    Sanders said the Jubilee received a bill for $23,882 from the City of Selma for police, fire, public service and other expenses for the five-day event. “We are not able to pay this outrageous amount. We have always said that we were willing to pay a reasonable amount but this bill is unacceptable. We paid for the right to hold this commemorative march in blood in 1965 and we are not paying now,” he said.

    Sanders pointed out that most of the events are free and most are workshops held in churches and public buildings that do not require police presence for five days. “We bring in people from all over the state, nation and the World. They spend money in Selma and surrounding communities. We do not charge for most of the events and when there is a charge it is for food and other expenses. The Jubilee does not make money – it takes money,” said Sanders.
    “The basic change we are making is shifting the Jubilee Festival with vendors and music from Water Street at the base of the bridge to the east side of the bridge,” said Sam Walker.
    All other events will take place as planned.
    On Monday, March 6, there will be a “Slow Ride to Montgomery” and a rally at the State House at the end of the ride with Rev. William Barber speaking on the moral imperatives of ending voter suppression in America. The organizers are hoping for 100 vehicles to participate. The ride will follow the route of the 1965 march, stopping at historical sites along the way.
    The Bridge Crossing Jubilee begins on Thursday, March 2 at 7:00 PM with an Old-Fashioned Mass Meeting at Tabernacle
    Baptist Church at 1431 Broad Street in Selma, where the initial meetings of the voting rights struggle were held in Selma in the 1960’s.
    Legendary Civil Rights Attorney Fred Gray will be the keynote speaker at Tabernacle Baptist Church on Thursday. Attorney Gray is the lead lawyer who argued and won the case to allow Voting Rights Foot Soldiers to march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. He is portrayed in the movie Selma.
    Attorney Gray has been involved in many historical Civil Rights cases in Alabama, including Gomillion v. Lightfoot; representation of Rosa Parks, whose arrest led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and desegregation of the Montgomery bus system; and Lee v. Macon Co. Bd. of Educ., which helped to desegregate schools throughout the state.
    A full schedule of events for the weekend is available at http://www.selmajubilee.com.

  • Wells Fargo commits $60B lending goal toward African American home ownership

    WellsFargoBankPhoto.jpg     Wells Fargo announced on Tuesday a $60 billion lending commitment to create at least 250,000 African American homeowners by 2027, directly addressing the lower home ownership rates in the African American community.

    The financial commitment serves to help a community that is slated to significantly increase. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by the year 2024, 75% of the expected 14 million new households (renters and owners) in the U.S. will be diverse.

    And of this amount, African Americans are projected to represent 17%, or the third largest segment, of the new households.

    Wells Fargo said that through the commitment it plans to:

    • Lend $60 billion to qualified African American consumers for home purchases by 2027
    • Increase the diversity of the Wells Fargo Home Lending sales team
    • Support the effort with $15 million to support a variety of initiatives that promote financial education and counseling over the next ten years.

    The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (composed of African American real estate professionals), which has also set a home ownership goal, and two of the nation’s most influential civil rights organizations, the NAACP and the National Urban League, are also working alongside Wells Fargo.

    “Wells Fargo’s $60 billion lending goal can contribute to economic growth by making responsible home ownership possible for more African Americans in communities across the country,” said Brad Blackwell, executive vice president and head of housing policy and home ownership growth strategies for Wells Fargo.

    “NAREB applauds Wells Fargo’s $60 billion loan commitment. The bank is the first financial institution to acknowledge publicly Black Americans’ wealth-building potential which could be greatly improved through home ownership,” said Ron Cooper, president, National Association of Real Estate Brokers.

    “NAREB welcomes their entry into the struggle to close the ever-widening wealth gap for Black Americans, and looks forward to having Wells Fargo as a partner in NAREB’s ‘2 Million New Black Homeowners in 5 Years’ program,” he continued.

    Wells Fargo’s $60 million commitment follows its 2015 announcement to help increase Hispanic home ownership. At the time, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage said it aimed originate $125 billion over the next 10 years in order to assist in the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals’ Hispanic Wealth Project, which seeks to triple Hispanic household wealth over the next decade.

    While Wells Fargo’s lending commitment is spread out over ten years, according to a recent interview with Raphael Bostic, a professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, America is projected to become drastically more diverse over the next several decades.

    “The Census Bureau has a projection that America will be 100 million people more in the next 45 years,” said Bostic. “And if you break down where the growth is coming, it’s coming with African American families, it’s coming with Asian families, and it’s coming with Latino families. What we will have at the end of that period is the most diverse country that we’ve ever seen. It really won’t make sense to talk about minorities since there will be pluralities of everyone.”

     

     

  • Hundreds Rally for Science at Demonstration Near AAAS Meeting

    By: Lindzi Wessel Science Magazine

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    Boston’s Copley Square fills with people during the Rally to Stand Up for Science., Sarah McQuate ,

    BOSTON–Hundreds of science supporters gathered here in Copley Square this afternoon at a rally coinciding with the annual meeting of AAAS, which publishes Science. Ralliers chose the meeting—the first major gathering of scientists since Trump took office—as an opportune moment to demonstrate that the science community plans to fight recent policies that many see as dangerous to the role of science in society.

    “We scientists want to send a message to Mr. Trump, and that’s that America runs on science,” Geoffrey Supran, a postdoctoral fellow studying energy modeling at MIT and science history at Harvard, tells Science. “Neither scientists nor citizens are going to stand idly by while the administration peddles anti-science rhetoric and alternative facts.”

    The Rally to Stand Up for Science, which was supported by over a dozen science activism groups, is not the first of its kind, and it won’t be the last. Concerned scientists organized a similar event at the December American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, shortly after President Trump was elected. And science supporters in the hundreds of thousands have pledged to march in cities around the globe on Earth Day (22 April).

    While AAAS itself was not involved in the rally, many conference attendees headed to Copley Square for the demonstration. And in many ways the tone of the rally seemed to parallel the atmosphere within conference center walls, where this year’s meeting theme was “serving society through science policy.” Session titles included “Defending Science and Scientific Integrity in the Age of Trump” and “Science Policy in Transition: What to Expect in 2017 and Beyond.” Attendees jumped at the opportunity to ask major science policy leaders, like John Holdren, the former Science Adviser to Barack Obama, how they could help influence policy under the new administration.
    “The energy of this year’s meeting feels different,” says former State Department Science Adviser, Frances Colón. “Some people sound excited, some concerned, some even enraged, and they all want to get engaged.”

    Not all meeting attendees were on the same page, though. During a session on science policy, former congressman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) echoed worries expressed by some science community members that the march could be “dangerous,” by painting science as just another interest group. But Boston rally speakers contested that view, arguing that they are fighting to protect the public more than their own interests.

    “If I lose my university job, I have enough transferable skills in communication and data analysis that I could find some other work,” says rally speaker Jacquelyn Gill, a paleoecologist studying climate change at the University of Maine, who is also involved in planning the March for Science. “It’s not myself that I’m worried about, it’s the outcomes of my research for the stakeholders—who are the American public.”

    Harvard historian of science and popular author, Naomi Oreskes, expressed a similar sentiment to ralliers at Copley Square. “We don’t want to be here. We want to be doing science,” she said. “But we can no longer sit on the sidelines assuming someone else well do the work of protecting the integrity of science.”

    And not all ralliers were from the scientific community. Holding a sign reading, “Living proof that you can [love] God and science,” Cambridge, Mass. minister Kate Layzer says she came out because she believes “we need science to save the world.” Greg Savage, an Acton, Mass. resident who works in finance says he came out with his wife, Nancy, because “it scares us that science is being ignored.” A botanical artist, she added that the couple thinks “it’s great for scientists to speak out.”

    It’s not the first time in history scientists have spoken out, noted Supran, arguing that the tradition of scientists speaking “truth to power” dates back to the days when Galileo was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church for insisting that the earth revolved around the sun. The last few weeks of activism have been a sign that “scientists have woken up,” he said, and are ready to fight back.

  • Patriots team members to sit out of White House visit, citing racism by Trump

    By Brittany Webb

    bennett-martellusMartellus Bennett
    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Malcolm X once said, “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”
    Despite having a career where taking a fall on the field is sometimes inevitable, several members of the New England Patriots football team have reportedly decided to stand for what they believe in. They say they will sit out of the traditional visit to the White House by the Super Bowl Championship team.
    So far, six players – five Black players and one White – have announced their decision to not participate in the team’s visit. Those players are reportedly Martellus Bennett, Devin McCourty, Chris Long, LeGarrette Blount, Alan Branch and Dont’a Hightower. Long is the White player who says he will not go.
    “I’m not going to the White House,” McCourty said in a text to TIME magazine. “Basic reason for me is I don’t feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won’t.”
    That unwelcome feeling is a feeling that McCourty shares with Blount, who, when asked about the team’s visit to the White House on The Rich Eisen Show, said, “I will not… It’s just some of the things—I just don’t feel welcome into that house. I’m just going to leave it at that.”
    Bennett was the first player to announce his decision when he addressed the visit in a postgame press conference, citing opposition to President Trump as his reason. Despite his views, Bennett says there is no divide in the team because of political views.
    “We all have our beliefs,” Bennett said. “The thing is, we accept people for who they are. And that’s the biggest thing about what this country is really about. I don’t really care what you believe. It’s not going to separate me from accepting you for who you are.”
    Bennett says anyone wanting to know more about his reasons for not going to the White House should just follow him on Twitter. Among his most recent tweet was immediately following Trump’s announced travel ban.
    The date of the White House visit has not yet been publically announced. “America was built on inclusiveness not exclusiveness,” he tweeted.
    It was also apparent bias and statements made by the commander-in-chief that influenced Patriots safety McCourty from skipping the trip as well. Although Long did not go into detail about his decision to skip the visit, it can be assumed, by his previous statements regarding race relations in America, that he is not fond of the current president and his policies. Branch is choosing to stay at home with family, while Hightower says he’s “been there, done that.”
    After the team’s victory, President Trump tweeted his support for the team and his friends quarterback Tom Brady, team owner Bob Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick. “What an amazing comeback and win by the Patriots,” Trump tweeted. “Tom Brady, Bob Kraft and Coach B are total winners. Wow!”
    Despite being a friend of Trump, Kraft respects the decision of the players to not visit the White House. “This is America,” Kraft said on the Today Show. “We’re all free to do whatever’s best for us, and we’re just privileged to be in the position to be going.”
    This is not the first time a Patriot has opted out of the team’s visit to the White House. In 2015, Brady decided to skip the team visit to the White House, under the Obama administration, after defeating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl in 2015.

  • Alabama Supreme Court dismisses appeal by Frontier Bingo in illegal gambling case

    State will keep $191,249 and 449 Electronic Bingo Devices Seized from Casino

    (MONTGOMERY) – Acting Alabama Attorney General Alice Martin announced the Alabama Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Dream, Inc., owners of Frontier Bingo in Greene County, thereby letting stand a lower court’s ruling in favor of the State of Alabama.
    On February 2, 2017, the Alabama Supreme Court issued its order to dismiss the casino operator’s appeal of an August 15, 2016, Greene County Circuit Court ruling. That ruling granted the State of Alabama’s Petition for Forfeiture and Condemnation of $191,249.11 in currency and 449 illegal electronic bingo machines seized from Frontier Bingo in 2014.
    Dream, Inc., filed its motion to dismiss its appeal after the Alabama Supreme Court ruling against Greenetrack, also in Greene County, on December 23, 2016. The Supreme Court left no doubt that electronic bingo is illegal in the State of Alabama.

    “I am pleased to announce that this case has been closed and these funds can be applied to the Alabama General Fund in accordance with the Court’s decision,” said Acting Attorney General Alice Martin. “Furthermore, the illegal electronic bingo devices seized by the State will be destroyed.”
    Acting Attorney General Martin thanked Assistant Attorney General John Kachelman and former Assistant Attorney General Bill Lisenby of the Criminal Trials Division, and Special Agents of the Attorney General’s Investigations Division for their work investigating the case and executing the search warrant which led to the seizure and the successful prosecution of Frontier Bingo.