CASH IN THE APPLE FOR
09-21-17
By Cash Michaels
As
you may know by now, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016
Democratic candidate for president, has written a book titled, “What Happened,”
released this week.
As
to be expected, Ms. Clinton is doing a heavy round of media interviews to
promote (read that as “sell”) her book, giving personal insight into what it
felt like to lose to controversial Republican candidate Donald Trump, putting
up with all of his nastiness and sexism, and how she felt the presidency was
finally hers…until the very last minute.
I
know that’s what many of us thought, given how routinely Trump seemed to be
self-destructing leading up to Election night.
But,
as we all know (and still lament), Clinton lost the presidency in the electoral
college, losing key states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that normally went
Democrat.
And
as you may also know, there’s currently a federal investigation underway to
determine exactly how much the Russian government influenced the 2016
presidential election so that Clinton would lose, making Trump the victor, and
whether or not they did so in collusion with the Trump campaign. There has been
plenty of smoke by way of
evidence, according to the New York Times
and the Washington Post, and it seems
it’s just a matter of time before Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller issues a
report outlining what he’s found per his investigation.
It
should be no surprise that Hillary Clinton has been following the Mueller probe
very intently, especially since she was on the receiving end of shenanigans
Trump and the Russians were allegedly up to. But it certainly was a surprise to
read that Ms. Clinton is willing, eager and able to officially challenge
Trump’s 2016 victory of Mueller’s evidence is compelling enough to warrant so
in her mind.
Let’s
remember something….Hillary Clinton is NOT Al Gore, who graciously decided
after the US Supreme Court effectively gave the 200 election to Republican
rival George W. Bush, and with it, the presidency, not to contest it for the
good of the nation.
Gore knew then that doing so would literally tear the nation
apart, and he didn’t want to go down in history as a sore loser.
But
Hillary Clinton’s case is way different.
The
United States, thanks to the unqualified madman we have in the Oval Office, is
already at civil war. People are more at each other’s throats than ever before,
with most of us simply not believing that anyone in their right mind would want
Donald Trump for president. His style and behavior have proven to be clearly
beneath the dignity of the high office that he holds. Trump is an embarrassment
to the American people, and before the world. He is an apologist for white
supremacists and warmongers. He is steadily inching our nation towards a nuclear
war with North Korea, another emerging nuclear power with a certified nut for a
national leader.
So
those who warn that we would see civil war in the streets if Trump is
perp-walked out of the White House in handcuffs after he’s impeached, hey, what
would you suggest? Let him stay and ruin our children’s future some more? Please
don’t tell me you’re afraid of people being more at each other’s throats than
they are now, because, just like a bad marriage, the real problems right under
the surface will always bubble up in the end.
We
can’t escape what’s coming.
And
if Hillary can legally get a court, based on compelling evidence, to rule that
the 2016 presidential election was a fraud thanks to the Russians and Trump
campaign scheming together to make it so, then I’m all for it.
The
last nine months have been frightful under Trump, and there’s more to come the
longer he stays.
None
of this is over by a longshot, folks. So strap yourselves in, because the we
are in for a REAL rough ride!
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POVERTY STILL PROMINENT
HERE, AND ACROSS NC
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
According
to new data from the US Census Bureau released on Sept. 14th, more
than 1.5 million of 10,146,788 North Carolinians still languish in poverty with
lack of access to good well-paying employment, inadequate education or skills
training, affordable and decent housing, limited access to public
transportation, and other important resources to lift themselves and their
families out of their dire condition.
Though,
according to analysts, there have been small improvements to their condition
between 2015 and 2016, 15.4 percent of North Carolinians lived in poverty in
2016, making less than $24, 600 a year for a family of four.
Specific
numbers of North Carolinians living in poverty by race were not available at
press time Tuesday, though it is known that 23.5 percent of African-Americans
statewide live below the official poverty line of $24,600 for a family of four.
In
Forsyth County, according to those US Census Bureau statistics, 18.1 percent of
its 371,511 residents were living in poverty as of July 1, 2016. Blacks are
27.4 percent of the county’s total population.
The
median household income between 2011 and 2015 was $45,471, per capita income
per the last 12 months was just $26,674 by 2015 standard.
Guilford
County, by comparison, had 15.7 percent of its 521,330 residents living in
poverty as of July 1, 2016. Approximately 34.6 percent of Guilford’s population
is African-American, compared to 22.2 percent statewide.
Median
household income (in 2015 dollars) in Guilford County between 2011-2015
was $45,651. Per capita income in
the prior 12 months was $26,762.
On
the coast, New Hanover County saw 17.3 percent of its 223.483 population in
poverty by July, 2016. African-Americans comprised just 14.2 percent.
Median
household income (in 2015 dollars) between 2011-2015 was $50,088, and per
capita income in the 12 months prior $29,880.
Finally,
in Durham County, 17.1 percent of its 306,212 residents were in poverty by July
1, 2016. Blacks were 38.3 percent of the total population.
In 2015 dollars, median household
income between 2011-2015 in Durham County was $52,503, and per capita per the
preceding 12 months was $30,268.
According to the NC Budget and Tax
Center, a progressive arm of the nonpartisan NC Justice Center in Raleigh,
North Carolina’s poverty rate is 1.4 percentage point higher than the national,
and has the 13th highest in the nation; North Carolina’s poverty
rate did decline by one point over the past year, but is 1.1 percent higher
than when the Great recession hit in 2007; 6.7 percent of North Carolinians
live in extreme poverty, below less than half the poverty line of bout $12,300
a year for a family of four.
In order to grow a stronger and
more inclusive economy for all of u in North Carolina, lawmakers must boost
public investments to connect people to good-paying jobs, health care and
education from early childhood to throughout their careers, said Alexandra Sirota,
director of the NC Budget and Tax Center.
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PLAINTIFFS, NCNAACP
CHALLENGE
GOP REDISTRICTING
MAPS
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
As
the three-judge federal panel reviews the newly redrawn NC redistricting maps
it ordered from the NC legislature, opponents aren’t waiting to weigh-in on
what the court’s next move should be.
Anita
Earls of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and Edwin Speas, Jr. of
Poyner & Spruill LLP, attorneys for plaintiffs who originally sued the
state ultimately proving that 28 of 170 legislative districts in the 2011 NC
redistricting map were illegal racial gerrymanders, filed a legal brief in
federal court last Friday alleging that at least 12 of the redrawn state House
and Senate districts resubmitted to the court are now either racial
gerrymanders, or are in violation of the state’s Constitution.
At
the top of the list for racial gerrymandering is Senate District 28, which
state Sen. Gladys Robinson (D-Guilford), an African-American, represents. The
three other districts are Senate District 21 in Cumberland and Hoke counties;
House District 21 in Wayne and Sampson counties and House District 57
represented by Rep. Pricey Harrison, again in Guilford County.
“Race
predominated in the drawing of these districts lines, and Defendants
(legislature) offer no compelling governmental interest to justify those
districts,” the plaintiffs’ Sept. 15th brief to the court contended.
Two weeks
earlier, Sen. Robinson of District 28 said, “The courts specifically looked at my District 28 and commented on
its composition. Republicans are intent on protecting Senator Trudy Wade
(R-Guilford) for whom they created a district by packing 28. I expect
that the only remedy will be in the courts.”
Rep. Harrison, a white Democrat representing
House District 57, was equally as resolute that the continued racial gerrymandering
would not stand.
“I believe the maps will be challenged and may
have a hard time passing muster with the federal court. I do not know if that
will affect the 2018 elections, but we will be spending more taxpayer money
defending the indefensible.”
If the federal judicial panel agrees with the
plaintiffs, Rep. Harrison and Sen. Robinson may now get their wish.
In
addition, several other legislative districts were found by plaintiffs to be
unconstitutionally redrawn, in that “…the plain language of the state
constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting.” The Constitution also prohibited
violation of its Whole County Provision, and plaintiffs contend that several
House districts are drawn crossing county boundaries.
Plaintiffs
recommended to the court that the redrawn maps by GOP lawmakers be thrown out,
and replaced with proposed legislative maps the plaintiffs have submitted for
the 2018 mid-term elections.
If
the court disagrees, plaintiffs ask that a court –appointed special master be
employed to “…redraw the districts in these limited county groupings.”
“We are asking
the court to step up and do what the legislature has continually failed to do —
give North Carolinians fair districts that do not discriminate or violate the
state constitution,” attorney Earls said
in a statement.
On
that same day, the NCNAACP filed an amicus brief to the court supporting the
plaintiffs’ position that the legislative redraws should be thrown out because
they “…remain tainted with race discrimination…,” and a special master be
secured to do the job properly.
In
its brief, the civil rights organization faults the Republican decision not to
use race as part of its criteria in redrawing legislative districts as a
primary reason why they’re still unconstitutional, as earlier determined by the
US Supreme Court.
“The
Legislative Defendants have thus returned to the court following a “remedial”
process that never directly addressed the race discrimination that infected its
prior maps, indicating once again that, as this Court has noted, it “does not
appreciate the need to move promptly to cure the unconstitutional racial
gerrymanders in the 2011 districting plans,”” the NCNAACP brief stated.
The General
Assembly cannot sufficiently demonstrate to this Court that the enacted plans
cure their egregious purposeful racial gerrymander through the bare assertion
that, by prohibiting any consideration of race data, they have created
color-blind remedial maps with no explanation of how these maps actually cure
the violations. The NC NAACP thus respectfully requests that the Court reject
the General Assembly’s proposed maps and appoint an independent special master
to draw fair remedial maps that properly consider race and fully remedy the
violation in accordance with federal and state law.”
Republican
legislative leaders have a week to respond to both the plaintiffs and NCNAACP
briefs.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, NC Congressman G. K.
Butterfield and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-LA) sent
a letter to heads of US Senate Judiciary Committee, urging them to “reject”
Pres. Donald Trump’s nomination of North Carolina Republican attorney Thomas Farr to a lifetime appointment as
federal judge for the Eastern District ,”… because of his dismal
record in opposition to voting rights and workers’ rights.”
Farr's hearing was scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 20th.
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REV. DR. T. ANTHONY SPEARMAN
REV. T. ANTHONY
SPEARMAN: WHY I SHOULD
BE THE NEXT NCNAACP
PRESIDENT
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Editor’s note: During the upcoming 74th
Annual NC NAACP Convention in Raleigh, current president, Bishop Dr. William
Barber will be stepping down after 12 years, and a new president will be
elected between Rev. Dr. Portia Rochelle, president of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP
Chapter, and Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, Third Vice President of the NCNAACP.
During
separate interviews, both candidates were asked the same six questions about
their respective visions for the state conference if either is elected to lead.
For a final question, they were asked to determine what they want rank-and-file
NCNAACP members to further know about them that they feel is relevant.
When
necessary, both candidates’ answers have been truncated for conciseness.
Last
week we interviewed Rev. Dr. Portia Rochelle. Today, we continue with Rev. Dr.
T. Anthony Spearman. Next week we talk with outgoing NCNAACP Pres. Bishop Dr.
William Barber II.
Rev.
Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, Third Vice President of the NC NAACP; senior pastor of
St. Phillip AME Zion Church in Greensboro; and president of the NC Council of
Churches, has been a member of the NAACP for 53 years. As a young man, his
father got memberships he and his sisters, telling them to keep them up because
“you will be fighting for justice for the remainder of your years.”
During that time, Rev. Spearman,
66, has also served as chairman of the NCNAACP Religious Affairs Committee, and
president of the Hickory Branch of the NAACP.
Now
he says it’s time to vie for the presidency of the civil rights organization
he’s given most of his life to, and lead it towards further establishing the
values and justice he’s sworn to uphold. Rev. Spearman is married with three
adult children, five grandchildren, and one great grandchild.
Why should you be elected as the next president to lead the North
Carolina State Conference of the NAACP?
“I
find the NAACP continues to be a very relevant organization in which I’m glad I
have cast my energies towards. I have been a staunch supporter of the Forward
Together/Moral Monday movement, and the second arrestee of the [first] Moral
Monday. I’ve been involved in civil disobedience on three separate occasions.
And so I’m very invested in the NCNAACP and the work thereof, and I’ve seen a
great deal of merit in the work of Dr. William J. Barber II, and want to see
this movement continue that has been started over the course of the 12 years
that he [has] served in leadership.”
What do you think of Bishop Dr. William Barber’s leadership of the
NCNAACP over the past 12 years, and, if elected, how do you intend to build on
it?
“I’ve been very much a part of Bishop
Barber’s leadership during that time, and it began with the HK on J Movement…I
was there at the inception of that, and then as it kind of grew into the
Forward Together/Moral Monday Movement, I was very much a part of that
movement. Candidly, Dr. Barber and I have become very collegial, and have
really held one another up in many of the things that have come before us as
the twelve years have unfolded.”
“My ideology is very, very similar to the ideology of Bishop
Barber, and what the NAACP lifts up as what they call “game-changers,” I lift
up as a five-point justice vision. When we talk about pro-labor, anti-poverty
policies that ensure economic sustainability, and educational equality that
ensures that every child receives an appropriate education, and health care,
and fairness in the criminal justice system, and protection of all kinds of
rights – voting rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, immigrant rights…all of
those are right at the cutting edge of the things I would think we need to
continue in terms of having the kind of ideology that’s going to help us to
make some ground so that we can continue to move forward together and not take
one step back.”
As NCNAACP president, how will you continue the fight for voting
rights?
“
One of the things that have been in the forefront of my mind is how to frame
doing what I hope to achieve once I’m elected, should I be elected. I’ve been
kind of obsessed with the thought of what I call a transforming and
understanding of “R.I.P.” which is the acronym we generally use for “rest in
peace.””
“I’m plagued with why do we wait
until someone dies to say or think that we want them now to rest in peace. So
I’ve been toying with the idea of how do we transform our understanding of
R.I.P., and help to translate it from a death wish to a justice gift.”
“Three of the points that I am
very, very bent on achieving or working on as we do the work come forth with
the acronym R.I.P. :
1.
Respecting
our vote –everything we face as a people is predicated on the right to
place ballots in the ballot box. Like watchmen on the wall, we have to continue
to be vigilant and make sure that we hold back all that the [NC] General
Assembly seeks to do to continue to suppress our vote. And I genuinely believe
that they will continue to throw forth some monkey wrenches to do just that.
2.
Inspecting
the root cause of poverty – The NCNAACP went around the state in 2011-2012
putting a face on poverty. For me, that was the cutting edge of what we need to
do. You’ll recall that during the 2016 elections, there was no talk, no
conversation, no debate whatsoever about poverty, no talk about racism, and I
believe that we as a people must be very intentional about talking about
poverty, bringing it onto the radar, and then keeping it on the radar so that
people are talking about it. And if no one else is talking about it, then we
need to be talking about it as a people, and strategize on how we are going to
be dealing with it to make sure that others understand how important it is to
us as a people.
3.
Protecting
our youth – We’re dealing with the militarization that Dr. King has always
talked about, and always have in the forefronts of our minds the things that
this so-called democracy is supposed to stand for.
How will you work to get more young people involved in the NC NAACP?
“I have developed two nonprofits –
one I established back in 2006 when I was pastoring in Hickory, NC. Now we’re
doing business here in Greensboro as “The B.R.I.D.G.E. Program” which is
“balancing relationships, instilling dignity, growth and empathy.” The
formation of that nonprofit happened while I was the education chair of the
Hickory branch of the NAACP, and a teacher contacted us about five
African-American students who were failing. I built a program around these
young men – Students Moving A Step Ahead - and took them to Detroit, Michigan for a weekend, and immerse
them in higher education…and came away from that experience with these young
men now thinking about going to college, as opposed to prior to that, they
didn’t think about it at all.”
“There were some successes that
were done, and we did that for about three years, but I came to terms with the
fact that it seemed to me to be a little too late. So I started another program,…and we were able to partner with
the Hickory Housing unit, use this curriculum, and had some major successes on
gathering young people together, giving them some cultural awareness, and
helping them develop a love for their culture. By leaps and bounds, there were
improvements in their lives.”
“I would use that same kind of
practice in trying to get young people involved in the NCNAACP. I’ve been
working on ways to be able to present them with something we can
intergenerationally involve these young people. The Scriptures tell us we are
to impress upon the children, spend time with the children, we’re going to make
sure that we interact with the children on 24/7 basis, thereby we will not be afraid of our children. I
think the fear that we have in engaging with our children prevents us from
keeping the children around us.
Next
week, Bishop Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the NCNAACP, exclusively
looks back over his 12-year tenure as he prepares to step down.
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR
9-20-17
LINDA COLEMAN TO RUN
FOR US CONGRESS
[RALEIGH]
A Wake County Democrat who came ran twice for lieutenant governor but fell
short, has announced that she will now make a run for the US Congress. Former
NC Rep. Linda Coleman says she has filed paperwork to challenge three-term
Republican incumbent Congressman George Holding in the 2nd
Congressional District in 2018. Holding is known for his ultra-conservative
views, and support of Pres. Trump. Coleman is also a former educator, Wake
County commissioner and once led the Office of State Personnel. She lost her
bid for lieutenant governor to Dan Forest in 2012 and 2016. She will face
businessman Sam Searcy and veteran Wendy Ella May in the Democratic primary.
SPEAKERS URGE A SLOW
PROCESS IN JUDICIAL REDISTRICTING
[RALEIGH]
“Slow down” was the admonition from judges and attorneys Tuesday during a
second judicial redistricting hearing conducted by Republican House member
Justin Barr (R-Stanly). Burr has filed House Bill 717, which calls for
lawmakers to redraw judicial and prosecutorial district lines, most likely
during the upcoming special session beginning Oct. 4th. Many judges
have expressed concern that the process will be more political than remedial.
Democrats charge that Republicans are pushing this now in order to elect more
Republicans as judges. Meanwhile the state Senate is leaning towards appointing
more judges, as opposed to electing more.
RALEIGH, CHARLOTTE
RANKED AMONG THE BEST US CITIES FOR JOBS
[RALEIGH]
According to the website Glassdoor, among the 25 top, the fourth best city in
the United States to find employment is Raleigh, and Charlotte is ranked #24.
Glassdoor ranks the number of job openings, median base salaries, median home
values and overall job satisfaction, according to local employers.
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