Vol. 49 No. 26
October 18, 2018 - October 24, 2018
This publication is a Certified DBE/ SBE / MBE in the State of California CUCP #43264 Metro File #7074 & State of Texas File #802505971 Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or words or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
COMMENTARY:
So Much Hate; So Little Tolerance The Democratic Congress is going through a mental crisis at the expense of our normal political process.
of other views. We should choose our political sides, debate and then elect a winner. Whoever that winner is, he becomes our leader for a set period and will be reelected or not depending on the popularity of his performance. We move on regardless of the outcomes. This is about the prosperity of America and how we do it is up to the voters. We win some. We lose some. But life goes on under the sweetness of democracy and the guarantee of freedom and individual rights. Sadly, since the latest federal election something has happened to our current state of minds. The political sides – Democrats and Republicans- have become intolerable of each other. The Democratic Party seems to be hurt from the 2016 election. They were so sure of victory that the defeat is not being accepted too well. In more peaceful times we would all say, “If you don’t like it, deal with it at the next election.” That type of patience does not seem to be tolerable any more. Democratic party members are becoming venomous in their attitudes and the making of their new
platform. They are so anti-Trump to the point of it being an attitude of resistance, obstruction and hatred of anything that supports our current Administration. TDS – Trump Derangement Syndrome – is real. Families are being broken up or becoming dysfunctional because of the last election. The current Supreme Court nominee selection process is a great example of this. No matter who President Trump selects for nomination, the Democratic wing of Congress is going to oppose it in a fanatical matter. Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh seems to have an impeccable record since becoming a judge. His over 300 judicial decisions are mainstream and without question illustrate good juris prudence. However, he is a Trump nominee and, thus, must be stopped by any means necessary, according to the Democratic side of Congress. They have not “thrown the kitchen sink” yet but just about every trick, ethical, unethical or even illegal, is being tried. One example is encouraging a mentally challenged individual to place a formal complaint of sexual
assault against nominee Kavanaugh. An alleged act that happened over 36 years ago. She requested discretion about the handling of this. What did they do? They leaked her accusation to the national press and paraded her on national television and gave her a questionable legal representative. They have put an “accuser” who needs medical help and privacy in a position of traumatic exposure. You must feel sorry for her. If that is not enough, they have two more “accusers” who claim either sexual indiscretion or down right gang rape. Yes, they are trying to paint a sleezy, criminal picture on a human being who has played by the rules and has lived a great, impressive American life. Hopefully, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will settle this matter soon. He has already successfully completed six previous FBI investigations covering the same period of time. However, it would not be too surprising if they try some more shenanigans, moral or immoral, legal or illegal to stop this nomination from going through. The Democratic Congress is going through a mental crisis at the expense of our normal political process. Somehow, I hope this will straighten itself out through the next elections that are coming up. Dear Lord, may our voters and elected officials come to their senses and end this hatred and lack of tolerance. Mr. Alford is the Co-Founder, President/CEO, of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®. Website: www.nationalbcc.org Email: halford@nationalbcc.org
Weinstein Charge Dropped, Cosby Supporters Cry Foul By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
Harvey Weinstein (Photo: Wikimedia Commons / David Shankbone) Is Bill Cosby paying the price for all of the sins in the #MeToo era, even though his conviction was based on something outside of that protest? It certainly appears that way, supporters argue. And, that argument grew louder when prosecutors in New York announced they were dropping portions of the criminal charges against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. The tossed charge — count six — involves allegations made by one of the three accusers in the case, Lucia Evans, who was among the first women to publicly accuse the disgraced movie mogul of sexual assault, according to Page Six. In an exposé published in The New Yorker a year ago, Evans accused Weinstein of forcing her to perform oral sex when they met alone in his Tribeca office in 2004 to discuss her fledgling acting career.
Email: sbamericannews@gmail.com Clifton Harris Publisher of The San Bernardino AMERICAN News
Kemp Faces Voter Purge Lawsuits In Georgia The Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, used by 26 states and administered by Kobach, is the Republican answer to a problem of massive voter fraud that does not exist. National News
By Harry C. Alford Political rivalry is as much a part of Americana as “Red, White and Blue.” We expect it and cheer on whatever side we support. Throughout the history of our great nation, elections would bring much debate and comparisons as to whose side or positions would be best for the future of our nation. I remember fearing the thought of Barry Goldwater becoming our nation’s president. I thought he was a maniac – a civil rights hating racist and a war monger. Not too long after that 1964 election cycle, I would be depending on Senator Goldwater to save my future. We were in Army basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. From there we would go to Infantry Officer Candidate School in Ft. Benning, Georgia. President Nixon decided that we were going to withdraw from Vietnam and, thus, the Army needed to reduce its manpower. They determined to stop us from going to Officer School (i.e. renege on our contracts with the US Army). It seemed like we were destined to be “screwed.” However, one of our compatriot’s mother worked for Senator Goldwater. He called his mother about the betrayal and she quipped “I will tell Uncle Barry about this.” The next day our contracts were back in force. Barry Goldwater had compassion for us and stepped up to protect us. He wasn’t that evil, “fire breathing” mongrel I thought him to be. The above experience taught me to understand that American politics should be restrained from hatred. There should be tolerance
Editor in Chief’s Corner
At the time, Evans was a 21year-old college student. Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the judge this week that prosecutors wouldn’t oppose dismissal of the count in the case involving Evans. Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told the judge he believed Evans had lied to the grand jury. He also said he believed a police detective had corruptly tried to influence the case by keeping a witness from testifying about her misstatements. “The integrity of these proceedings has been compromised,” he said. Weinstein’s attorneys and prosecutors had been wrangling over the part of the indictment concerning Evans’ allegations over the last few weeks in closed-door meetings and sealed court papers, Page Six reported. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, about 90-minutes from the Norristown courthouse where Cosby was convicted in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, some individuals approached by NNPA Newswire said they believe the entire Weinstein case will ultimately be tossed. The difference between Cosby and Weinstein is quite simple,”
said Walter Cohen of Harrisburg. “Even though they are both rich and famous, Weinstein is white, and Cosby is Black. I know that sounds too simple, but the problem people have today and with this #MeToo movement is reading far too much into things,” Cohen said. Samantha Devers pointed out that Cosby’s accusers were mostly white and the woman he was convicted of was also white. “A Black man, white woman. They had to teach not just Bill Cosby a lesson, but they had to send a message to all Black men — and those who don’t get it better quickly wake up,” said Devers, an African-American woman. Sean Boyd, another Harrisburg resident, said Cosby is paying for the sins of Weinstein and others. “Look, on the day Cosby was sentenced, [Comedian] Louis C.K. did a comeback show and [Filmmaker] Roman Polanski announced a new movie,” Boyd said. Louis C.K. had been embroiled in a sex assault scandal of his own and Polanski famously pled guilty decades ago to charges involving sodomizing a 13-year-old girl. Polanski fled the country and has never served time, yet has went on to win an Oscar and, until the recent #MeToo movement, the
support of Hollywood heavyweights. “When you look objectively at Bill Cosby’s case, he was dating this girl and she wanted what he couldn’t give her, so she cried foul and got millions of dollars from Cosby and yet, years and years later, they come with what I believe were bogus charges against Cosby and the judge and prosecutor made sure they sent him away,” Boyd said. It’s also no secret that after Cosby’s sealed civil deposition was released in 2014, attorney Gloria Allred brought forward at least 30 women with claims against Cosby. Allred asked that Cosby put $100 million in a trust for the women and allow a magistrate to decide if they could get the money. Allred’s daughter, attorney Lisa Bloom, initially represented Weinstein. She said, “everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt,” and that Weinstein was “repentant.” After some backlash, Bloom dropped Weinstein as a client. “She never tried to give Cosby the benefit of the doubt,” Boyd said. “That’s what this whole thing has been about. It’s like out of the Jim Crow era. They will stick up for their own and they will make sure that a Black man pays.”
(APN) ATLANTA - Georgia's Secretary of State Brian Kemp is currently facing at least two lawsuits related to his voter purging practices in the lead-up to the November 2018 General Election. In 2017, Kemp found a way to purge another half a million voters from the voter rolls, continuing his practice of purging eligible voters from the voter rolls that he has engaged in since 2013. Only under the threat of a federal lawsuit, did Kemp turn over the names of over one half million voters purged from the voting rolls in 2017. At a press conference on Tuesday, October 2, 2018, members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, and the New Georgia Project announced their plans to join Greg Palast, an investigative journalist, to file a federal lawsuit against Kemp. The lawsuit accuses Kemp's office of using a faulty and racially biased method of removing legitimate voters from the rolls. "We are trying to get in touch with all the people who have been wrongly removed by this crazy crosscheck list which is racially biased," Palast said. To check to see if you have been purged, go to gregpalast.com In addition, a second lawsuit filed on Thursday, October 11, 2018, in federal district court by the Campaign Legal Center and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, challenges some 53,000 voter registration applications that have been held up in Kemp's office due to a mismatch. Kemp has said that those 53,000 Georgians are on a "pending" list and are eligible to vote on November 6, 2018. The 53,000 were first reported by the Associated Press. "Many people have died to have the right to vote. Folks like Kemp and others throughout this country think they have a legal right to remove people with certain ethnicities that they don't want to be part of the process. This is blatant racism," Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., President and CEO of SCLC, said. Others in the room held similar beliefs. Dr. Joe Beasley, an international activist and Rainbow Push organizer, referred to Kemp as "this
mean person sitting in the Secretary of State's office... who aspires to be Governor of this State, with his racist intentions to remove almost one-half million or more from the rolls, the majority African Americans." Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, is the main force behind the claim that there are purportedly millions of illegal voters committing fraud in the U.S. by voting twice in different states. The Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, used by 26 states and administered by Kobach, is the Republican answer to a problem of massive voter fraud that does not exist. It allegedly finds voters with the same name who have registered in more than one state, creating a perceived justification for states to kick them off the voter rolls. Kemp, as well as 26 other Republican-controlled Secretaries of State, sent their entire voter files to Kobach to put them all together and cross-check the names. Crosscheck nationwide has tagged 7.2 million voters suspected of voting more than once. Yet, only four people have been charged with double voting or deliberate double registration, according to a Rolling Stone magazine investigation into the elusive double voters. Palast claims that Kemp took the list of names provided by Kobach, finding hundreds of thousands of Georgians to purge from the voter rolls for allegedly moving out of the State of Georgia, Palast claims. Crosscheck is supposed to check first, middle, and last names; plus birth date and last four digits of one's Social Security number. But that does not always happen. (continued on page 3)
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