DISASTER DEBATE: BRASH TRUMP
TO WHITE SUPREMACISTS - “STAND BY”
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
For the second time in his presidency, Donald Trump, when offered the opportunity, declined to denounce white supremacists.
Instead, during Tuesday night’s fiery and stunning presidential debate with Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump, when asked by beleaguered moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups” and tell them to “stand down,” replied, “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.”
When Wallace asked for clarification, giving the example of the right wing violent neo-racist, Trump replied, “Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by.”
Even the FBI has declared that America’s most dangerous terrorist threats come from white supremacist groups, not Black Lives Matter, which Trump and leaders in the Republican Party routinely and falsely accuse of starting violent demonstrations, burning and looting.
Doing the Tuesday night debate from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio under COVID-19 restrictions , the first of a scheduled three ninety-minute presidential debates went off track quickly when the Republican president refused to honor the debate rules that both campaigns had previously agreed to, personally attacking Democrat Biden and his family relentlessly, and deliberately mischaracterizing Biden’s political record, swing at one point that Biden hadn’t done anything in public office for 47 years.
A frustrated Biden, in turn, told Trump at one point to “shut up,” referred to the president as a “clown” and a “racist,” and finally called him to his face “the worst president America has ever had.”
On the COVID-19 pandemic, not only did Biden boldly accuse Trump of lying and mishandling the crisis, resulting currently in over 200,000 deaths and 7 million infected across the nation, but even warned that African-Americans would increasing die of it because of Trump.
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OUR ENDORSEMENTS 2020 (PART 2)
Every two years (general election and midterms) The Wilmington Journal has proudly shared with you, our readers and community, our opinions of, and endorsements for some of those who wish to serve us in public office. This crucial election year is no different, except that we’re doing it a little earlier this year because voting for the Nov. 3rd general election has actually already started, thanks to mail-in absentee ballots.
It is because of the COVID-19 pandemic that mail-in ballots are so prominent now, and at last check, over 1 million have been requested statewide.
Remember, if you want a mail-in absentee ballot to vote by, you must be a registered NC voter, and go online to https://votebymail.ncsbe.gov/app/home to request a ballot be sent to you. When you receive it, make your candidate choices, sign it, and have a witness to your signature sign it too.
Then either send it back, or drop it off at your New Hanover County Board of Elections office (230 Government Center Drive, Suite 38, Wilmington - 910-798-7300) by 5 p.m on Nov. 3rd, Election Day. By mail, it must be postmarked by Nov. 3rd, and arrive by Nov. 4th before 5 p.m..
After you’ve returned your ballot, you can track it online via Ballottrax at https://northcarolina.ballottrax.net/voter/.
For those who don’t mail-in vote, One Stop Early in-person voting begins Oct. 15 through Oct. 31st.
Remember, whether you choose to vote by mail, by early vote, or on Election Day, you can only vote ONCE! Go to https://northcarolina.ballottrax.net/voter/ to track your ballot once you send it back. It is against the law to vote twice in the same election in North Carolina.
Last week, we gave you our endorsements for president of the United States, governor, lt. governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress and NC Council of State officials.
This week, we continue with part two of our endorsements.
All of them are Democrats, and are listed as they appear on the ballot.
Cheri Beasley
NC Supreme Court Chief Justice (Seat 1)
Lucy Inman
NC Supreme Court Associate Justice (Seat 2)
Mark Davis
NC Supreme Court Associate Justice (Seat 4)
Tricia Shields
NC Court of Appeals Judge (Seat 4)
Lora Christine Cubbage
NC Court of Appeals Judge (Seat 5)
Gray Styers
NC Court of Appeals Judge (Seat 6)
Reuben F. Young
NC Court of Appeals Judge (Seat 7)
Chris Brooks
NC Court of Appeals Judge (Seat 13)
Harper Peterson
NC State Senate (District 9)
Deb Butler
NC House of Representatives (District 18)
J.H. Corpening II
NC District Court Judge (District 5, Seat 5)
Richard Russell Davis
NC District Court Judge (District 5, Seat 6)
Jeffrey Evan Noecker
NC District Court Judge (District 5, Seat 7)
Robin Wicks Robinson
NC District Court Judge (District 5, Seat 9)
Jonathan Barfield, Jr.
Leslie Cohen
Kyle Horton
Board of Commissioners (vote for all three Democrats)
Stephanie Walker
Hugh McManus
Chris Meek
Board of Education (vote for all three Democrats)
Clayton Hamerski
Register of Deeds
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STATE NEWS BRIEF FOR OCT. 1, 2020
NORTH CAROLINA FREEDOM PARK BREAKS GROUND OCT. 7
[RALEIGH] With bipartisan support from state legislators, North Carolina Freedom Park, the first park honoring the African American experience in the state, will represent universal themes of freedom, perseverance and equality. The public is invited to view the event virtually at 12 noon, while project organizers lift symbolic shovels in downtown Raleigh, marking a proud milestone for the state. Projected to be completed by 2022, North Carolina Freedom Park will be prominently located between the State Legislative Building and the Governor’s Mansion.
REPUBLICAN SBOE MEMBERS RESIGN OVER COURT SETTLEMENT
[RALEIGH] The two Republican members of the five-member State Board of Elections resigns last week after they voted unanimously with the three Democrats on the board to approve a court settlement extending t election deadline for Nov. 3rd, and improving the cure procedure for spoiled absentee mail-in ballots. What’s worse, there is evidence that the two Republican members - Ken Raymond and David Black - were pushed to resign in protest by a NCGOP attorney because the party was “unhappy” with they original vote. At press time, the settlement still had to be approved by a judge.
NBA BASKETBALL STAR CHRIS PAUL ENROLLS AT WSSU TO ENCOURAGE VOTING
[WINSTON-SALEM] Chris Paul, NBA superstar with the Oklahoma City Thunder, has enrolled to take a class at Winston-Salem State University in order to encourage student to participate in voting. Ironically, Paul used to play ball for Wake Forest University before he turned pro. “We are providing transportation to HBCU students to get the polls so we are working on that now,” Paul told ESPN recently. Paul’s parents also attended WSSU.
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RACE FOR LT. GOV.
HISTORIC, CONTROVERSIAL
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
On Nov. 3rd, North Carolinians will make history by electing their first African-American lieutenant governor ever, the second highest state official designated to step in for the governor when needed. It will either be Democrat Rep. Yvonne Lewis Holley of Raleigh, or Republican Mark Robinson of Greensboro.
And while, by most accounts, Rep. Lewis-Holley is expected to win, it is Robinson who is making the race most notable with his usually outspoken conservative frankness that arguably runs counter to most of North Carolina’s Democratic-leaning African-American voters.
Rep. Lewis-Holley has serve four terms in the N.C. General Assembly over the past eight years. She proudly considers herself progressive politically, and a staunch advocate for civil rights, women’s rights, criminal justice reform, gun reform and preserving the environment. The daughter of legendary WRAL-TV Black broadcasting pioneer J.D. Lewis, Rep. Lewis Holley also believes strongly in fighting systemic racism, helping the poor, and creating job and small business opportunities for those who want to improve their lot in life.
She is also a strong supporter of Gov. Roy Cooper, and gives him high marks for managing the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
Republican Mark Robinson, who criticizes Cooper’s handling of the pandemic, is literally the polar opposite, and his supporters like him that way.
The ninth of ten children, Robinson was born and raised in Greensboro. He has served in the Army Reserves as a medical specialist, has been a small business owner, and a factory worker. He and his wife are the parents of two children.
So how did Robinson end up running for the state’s second highest office?
It was April of 2018, when citizen Mark Robinson appeared before the Greensboro City Council, and delivered a fiery and much lauded pro-gun rights speech that captured the hearts and minds of Republicans statewide. Indeed, when Robinson ran in the March GOP primary, he finished first out of a large file of professional Republican politicians, shocking the political establishment.
The rest is history. Taking a page from his party’s leader, Pres. Donald Trump, the religious and political conservative has been spectacularly outspoken on everything from how “satanic or Jewish movie producers” run Hollywood, to former First Lady Michelle Obama actually being a man.
Indeed, when Robinson isn’t sharing his explosive personal insights in numerous speeches across the state, he pines prolifically on his Facebook page, so much so that North Carolina’s news media has picked up on it, and have portrayed Robinson as a Black conservative gun-loving right-winger who is in lockstep with Pres. Trump and his party’s most outlandish extremists.
Could Robinson get some of the state’s loyal Black Democrat vote? It’s possible…just as long as not too many read his facebook post from 2018, “…half of black Democrats don't realize they are slaves and don't know who their masters are. The other half don't care."
And many of them, who rail against police brutality and social injustice, would also be less than charmed with Robinson’s view that there is no such thing as systemic racism. Or that he feels that beloved former Pres. Barack Obama “is a worthless, anti-American atheist who wanted to bring this nation to its knees, then raise it back to its feet as a European style socialist hell hole.”
Robinson even took time to criticize the highly popular 2018 superhero movie “Black Panther,” all because it gave Black audiences a fantasy.
With Robinson bashing everyone from socialists to homosexuals, the question isn’t how much Black vote will he get compared to Democrat Lewis-Holley, because the answer to that is almost academic.
The question is how much of the Trump-Republican base across the state will he get, given that the president is currently neck-and-neck with Democrat Joe Biden in the top-of-the-ballot contest.
As unsavory as Mark Robinson’s views are, observes warn that in this current political atmosphere, he is just as likely to win as his Democrat opponent.
The answer may come on Nov. 3rd.
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REV. BARBER IMPLORES
BLACK MEN TO VOTE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The extraordinary power of the vote, and why poor people - especially black men - should use it in the upcoming Nov. 3rd election, was Rev. William Barber’s special guest sermon last Sunday at St. Joseph’s A.M.E. Church in Durham, where Rev. Jonathan C. Augustine is the pastor.
The event was co-sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, inc and it’s Andrew Young Social Justice Institute.
In a biblically-inspired address titled “Why We Can’t Stay Here” for the church’s “Social Justice Sunday,” Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, powerfully enumerated how previously in U.S. history, poor people have survived “evil” leadership from like presidents Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce and Woodrow Wilson who presided over corruption, violent oppression, suppression of the press, lying about a pandemic and even race riots and even the lynching of black men, by realizing it for what it was, and coming together for their very survival.
“My brothers and sisters, what we see today, is America,” Barber preached. “It’s not all of America, but you can’t say it isn’t America, because we’ve seen it before, and we’ve seen how bad it can get if it’s not stopped.”
In spite of the repressive policies of President Donald Trump, Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell,” all and the Republican Party, if poor people, especially in the South, were to come together again, and vote as a bloc, they could change the course of political history, Rev. Barber vowed.
“This nation must understand that the current president is holding on to much of the evil that has come before him, and you make a critical mistake, America, if you say this is the worst that we’ve ever seen,’ Rev. Barber admonished. “That is revisionist history, and it is not true.”
“America is under siege…yes from a pandemic, a viral pandemic, but also from politicians, also from the pandemic of racism and greed,” along with health care, education and other issues.
“And they’re using power to hurt the nation!”
But Rev. Barber made clear that just when things look bad and hopeless, GOD steps in, and sends someone to challenge the evil of leadership.
“Oppression as ours will always appear invincible until the very hour of its fall.”
“[Black men are] being called now to stand for truth, to vote for truth…,” Rev. Barber continued. “We can’t stay here,” meaning that African-Americans and other communities of color cannot stand still watch themselves die, watch themselves be victimized by the evil of corrupt leadership.
“We can’t stay …here. All this lyin’, all this racism, all this failure, all this hatred, all this injustice, all this dyin’!”d
“America, we can’t stay here!” Rev. Barber bellowed.
“Black men…we can’t stay here ,” Rev. Barber preached to the men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. present. “We need to vote with our ballots. We must galvanize poor and low-income voters. The power to change things is in our hands.”
Rev. Barber noted that in 2016, there were 63 million poor and low-income voters - 30 percent of the total American electorate. 29 millions voted and 34 million didn’t.
Barber maintains that 61 percent of African-Americans are poor and low-wealth.
A recent study commissioned by the Poor People’s Campaign showed that in fifteen states, including North Carolina, is poor voters voted between 1 - 19 percent higher, they could change every election, including the presidency.
It’s well-known that Republicans cater to the interests of the wealthy, but Rev. Barber chided Democrats for not even reaching to the poor. Indeed, he said, one of the reasons why many poor voters don’t participate in elections is because no one speaks to them or addresses their issues.
Rev. Barber made clear that the power to change elections is in the hands of poor and low-income voters, if only they can be inspired to use it.
“The people on the margins can set us free,” he said.
Apparently both the Biden and Trump presidential campaigns are recognizing the power of the Black vote.
Though he’s now been to North Carolina to campaign five times in the past month, Pres. Trump waited until he visited Atlanta, Ga. last week to rollout his so-called “Platinum Plan” for Blacks, offering to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, officially designate the Ku Klux Klan as a terrorist organization, and and pushing for Black economy development.
Trump’s pandering for Black votes just two months before the Nov. 3rd election came two days after Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden traveled to Charlotte last week to speak at the Black Economic Summit., where he discussed investing billions into HBCUs and helping Black small businesses if elected.
It was the former vice president’s first trip to North Carolina since the March 3rd primaries.
His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential hopeful, made her first visit back to North Carolina since last August, on Monday, visiting Shaw University and a Black barbershop in Raleigh.
When asked by an audience member in the barbershop’s parking lot how, if elected, she and Joe Biden would work for Black voters, Harris, an alumna of Howard University in Washington, D.C., said, “You have to earn the vote. If you define the win of simply beating Donald Trump, then the job is over the day we get sworn in.”
It is when they’re both sworn-in that the work towards helping the Black community begins.
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