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Michigan Chronicle

Vol. 82 – No. 23 | February 13-19, 2019

Powered by Real Times Media | michiganchronicle.com

Abrams Blasts Trump, McConnell for ‘Power Grab’ After State of the Union Address By Stacy M. Brown Stacey Abrams may not be the governor of Georgia, but she did make history on Tuesday, Feb. 5. After patiently waiting in the wings as President Donald Trump used 90 minutes to deliver what was supposed to be a 45-minute State of the Union Address, Abrams provided a scathing Democratic rebuttal to the president’s highly-scripted speech to Congress on Tuesday, Feb. 5. In doing so, Abrams became the first Black woman for either party to deliver a formal response to the State of the Union.

Stacey Abrams

Speaking firmly and with a fervor that has earned her the national stage, the former Georgia Gubernatorial candidate said the “hopes of American families are being crushed” by Republican political leadership.

“In Georgia and around the country, people are striving for a middle class where a salary truly equals economic security,” Abrams said. “But instead, families’ hopes are being crushed by Republican leadership that ignores real life or just doesn’t understand it.” The response is a tradition undertaken by a representative of the president’s opposing party, who gives a speech immediately after the State of the Union to rebut claims made in his address. According to CBS News, the first rebuttal was delivered by Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen and Rep. Gerald Ford in response to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union. Since 2011, there have been responses in English and one in Spanish given by a separate speaker. The address has usually been given by a member of Congress or a sitting governor, making Abrams an intriguing choice given she doesn’t currently hold a political office. Only one other time has an elected official not holding statewide or federal office given their party’s response: Elizabeth Guzman, a Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates, delivered the Spanish-language response for Democrats in 2018, CBS reported. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra gave the Spanish address this year. However, since losing her gubernatorial bid, Abrams has said she is open to running for political office again.

See STACY

ABRAMS page A2

WHAT’S INSIDE

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Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony, President, Detroit Branch NAACP; Tonya Allen, President and CEO, Skillman Foundation; U.S. Congressman John Dingell; U.S. Senator Carl Levin both received lifetime achievement awards at the 59th Annual Fight For Freedom Fund dinner.

A Fighter for Justice Until the End

John Dingell, Jr., Michigan Leader, and Country's Longest Serving Congressman Dies By Trevor W. Coleman

ell, Sr. a popular liberal incumbent who died while in office.

Local, state and national figures from across the country offered heartfelt condolences and praise for the life and career of the country’s longest-serving congressman, John Dingell, Jr., who died Thursday evening after a lengthy illness.

His tenure began just weeks after the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her act of defiance launched the modern civil rights movement and career of a young local minister named the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Both of the civil rights icons would later go on to form a critical alliance with Dingell, who would be instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – although it nearly cost him his seat in Congress.

The 92-year-old retired Congressman quietly passed away at his Dearborn home with his wife, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-12) and family by his side. He had recently entered hospice care following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. The congresswoman issued a statement announcing her husband’s death: “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of John David Dingell, Jr., former Michigan Congressman and longest-serving member of the United States Congress. Congressman Dingell died peacefully today at his home in Dearborn, with his wife Deborah at his side. He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather, and friend. He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor-sharp wit, and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth.” Dingell served in the House of Representatives for 59 years from 1955 to 2015, representing the 12th District which encompassed Dearborn. Just three years after graduating from Georgetown University Law School, the 29-year-old Dingell was elected to take over the congressional seat left vacant by the death of his father, John Ding-

As the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company and River Rouge Plant, Dingell’s district was considered fairly liberal on issues such as of labor, economic rights and environmental issues. However, after a redistricting change, Dingell was thrown into a new district in a race against another local incumbent, Democrat John Lesinski, Jr. who, like Dingell, also had taken over the seat held by his father. At that time, Dearborn and most of its elected officials were notoriously hostile toward African Americans and its long-serving Mayor Orville L. Hubbard was an outspoken white supremacist, who along with Lesinski had whipped much of the virtually all-white city of more than 100,000 into a frenzy of fear and anger about racial integration. Lesinski himself was considered by many in the civil rights community to be a bigot. And as if to confirm those suspicions he ran a flagrantly racist campaign against Dingell warning of “coloreds” integrating Dearborn’s lily white

neighborhoods and causing crime. In fact, he came to be known as the only Northern Democratic Congressman to vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was censured by the state Democratic Party for voting against it. Still, to the surprise of most pundits at the time, Dingell managed to eke out a narrow victory. He went on to become one of the major congressional champions of civil rights and other progressive legislation. In a recent profile of Dingell by Time Magazine writer Olivia B. Waxman titled, Inside the ‘Single Most Important Vote’ of John Dingell’s Record-Breaking Career she noted that for the young congressman worries about a possible backlash to his support for civil rights were trumped by a commitment to fight for the rights of all Americans. “I was challenged in an election in which the Wall Street Journal gave me a 1 in 15 chance of winning. It was a hard-fought campaign in which I asked people: Why is it that a white man or woman should be able to vote and an African-American should not?” http://time.com/5524222/john-dingell-most-important-vote/ He served as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee for more than 15 years, and on the committee for nearly 58 years, making him the longest-serving member on any congressional committee. In a six decade long career of noteworthy votes, among his most prominent was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Fair Housing Act of 1968, Medicare, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the

See JOHN

DINGELL page A2

Trumps SOTU Rings Hollow

Serves Little Purpose Other Than to Excite Base and Fill Time

Ways To

By Trevor W. Coleman

Declutter Your Love Life City.Life.Style. C1 Through The Nets Podcast:

The Basketball Moms of Detroit Games. C4

During his prime time State of the Union address last week President Trump had the opportunity to make his case to Congress and rest of the nation for supporting his policy agenda for the rest of his term in office.

• He claimed unemployment has reached the lowest rate in half a century. But that’s not true, it briefly dipped to 3.8 percent last September, the lowest rate since 1969. But is now back at 4 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Yet, Mr. Trump’s speech was a rambling, discordant, exercise in contradictory rhetoric, insulting racial tropes, lies, distortions, and fearmongering that pretty much rendered the entire evening pointless. He really could have simply mailed the speech into Congress as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had suggested at one point during the government shutdown last month. And the country literally would not have been any worse for the wear.

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already underway when he assumed office. For example, CBS News and other news outlets pointed out:

If it wasn’t for the powerfully

inclusive and aspirational speech by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in her Democratic response to Trump’s nearly two hours long rant, one could have been left with the impression that the President of the United States was suggesting the country needed a “purge”

like in the dystopian science fiction movie. While few and far between, even Trump’s attempt at highlighting positive achievements over the course of his tenure in office were often exaggerated. Or he took more credit than he actually deserved for dynamics

• Trump boasted the U.S, Treasury is receiving billions of dollars from tariffs we imposed on $250 billion dollars of Chinese goods. However, while the Treasury is taking in billions, China isn’t paying the tariffs: the duties are paid by importers that either swallow the cost or pass it along to consumers. In other words, it’s often U.S. consumers who have been paying for the tariffs.

See SOTU page A3


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