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September 6, 2012

  • Tutu Says Bush and Blair Should Be Tried for Roles in Iraq War

    Tutu Says Bush and Blair Should Be Tried for Roles in Iraq War South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in a British newspaper that former President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried by the International Criminal Court of Justice in the Hague, the Netherlands, for their roles in the Iraq War.

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  • Plan to Graduate More Black Men

     Plan to Graduate More Black Men The percentage of black men enrolled in college is equal to their percentage in the population by Frederick H.

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  • Ryan's College Girlfriend Spent Time In Prison

    Ryan's College Girlfriend Spent Time In Prison Deneeta Pope, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s black college girlfriend, served five months in a federal prison after pleading guilty to stealing funds from Ernst & Young, one of the nation’s big four accounting firms. Paul Ryan TMZ, the celebrity news website, reported that a grand jury in November 1999 indicted Pope for allegedly swindling Ernst & Young out of $77,000.

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  • IRS Funks Up George Clinton’s Day with a Tax Lien

    IRS Funks Up George Clinton’s Day with a Tax Lien Funkmaster George Clinton may be in a funk after the IRS hit the legendary musician with another tax lien. Clinton failed to pay $7,457.89  worth of taxes in 2009 and $13,301.

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  • Oprah’s Rihanna Interview Puts OWN Ratings in Top 25 for First Time

    Oprah’s Rihanna Interview Puts OWN Ratings in Top 25 for First Time Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Target Market News (TriceEdneyWire.com) The second season premiere of Oprah's Next Chapter, featuring singer Rihanna, gave OWN its highest ratings for a Sunday premiere since the network's launch in January 2011.

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  • Judge Orders Ohio to Restore Early Voting Days

    Judge Orders Ohio to Restore Early Voting Days by Frederick H. Lowe A U.S. District Court Judge has ordered Ohio officials to restore three days of early voting prior to the November 6 presidential election for all Ohio residents, not just state residents who are in the military and vote by absentee ballot. The ruling by Judge Peter C.

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  • Judge Signals Intent to Lift Burden on Voter Drives

    Judge Signals Intent to Lift Burden on Voter Drives A U.S. District Court  judge in Florida has indicated that he will remove severe restrictions on community-based voter-registration drives, handing civic groups a major victory in the voting-rights struggle in Florida, a battleground state in November’s presidential election. Judge Robert Hinkle ruled in League of Women Voters of Florida vs Kenneth W.

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  • Four Years Ago, Blacks Voted in Higher Numbers than Whites

    Four Years Ago, Blacks Voted in Higher Numbers than Whites by Frederick H. Lowe In the 2008 presidential election, the first ever in which a major political party nominated an African American for president, black-voter turnout exceeded white-voter turnout for the first time in U.S.

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  • 47 Black Delegates Attended the Republican Convention

    47 Black Delegates Attended the Republican Convention by Frederick H. Lowe The number of African-American delegates who attended last week’s Republican National Convention was higher than in 2008 but lower than in 2004, according to “Blacks and the 2012 Republican National Convention.” The study reported that 47 African-Americans, or 2.1 percent of the 2,286 delegates attended the 40th Annual Republican National convention in Tampa, Fla., wrote Dr.

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  • NAACP Urges Blacks To Support the Justice Department

    NAACP Urges Blacks To Support the Justice Department The NAACP is urging African Americans to sign an online petition supporting the U.S.

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  • Convention Is a "Pep Rally and a Launching Pad’’ for Obama’s Re-election

    Convention Is a by Hazel Trice Edney CHARLOTTE, N.C. (TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Barack Obama is set to accept the nomination this week to lead America for four more years.

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  • Romney’s Campaign Wedge: Taxpayers vs. Welfare Queens

    Romney’s Campaign Wedge: Taxpayers vs. Welfare Queens Colorlines The issue of taxes is the Republican Party’s dog whistle on race.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan—engaged in a nail-biting political fight—have resorted to blowing it loudly and unashamedly.

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  • Romney’s Hoped-For Post-Convention Bounce Falls Flat

    Romney’s Hoped-For Post-Convention Bounce Falls Flat Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, did not receive much of a bounce after his party’s national convention last week in Tampa, Fla., according to the Gallup organization.

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  • Peace Prize Winners Protest NBC War Show

    Peace Prize Winners Protest NBC War Show (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Seven Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa, are protesting the new NBC  show Stars Earn Stripes, which, they say, glorifies war and armed violence. In a letter to NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt, the Nobel laureates said, “It is our belief that this program ...

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  • West African Aluminum Refinery Remains Closed Over Wage Dispute

    West African Aluminum Refinery Remains Closed Over Wage Dispute Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from GIN (TriceEdneyWire.com) – Africa’s first aluminum refinery, in the town of Fria, north of Guinea’s capital Conakry, remains locked down five months after workers struck the plant in a fierce battle over wages.

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  • California Ethnic Voters Solidly Support Health Reform

    California Ethnic Voters Solidly Support Health Reform by Viji Sundaram New America Media SACRAMENTO, Calif.

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  • Michael Clarke Duncan, 54

    Michael Clarke Duncan, 54 Academy Award nominated actor Michael Clarke Duncan died Monday morning  at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a Los Angeles hospital, following a July 13th heart attack.

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  • Chris Lighty, 44

    Chris Lighty, 44 Chris Lighty, a hip-hop mogul whose roster of clients included 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Diddy and Mariah Carey, was found shot to death behind his home on August 30 in Riverdale, N.Y.

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  • Hal David, Writer of Hits for Dionne Warwick, Dies

    Hal David, Writer of Hits for Dionne Warwick, Dies Hal David, who wrote some of singer Dionne Warwick’s greatest hits, including the classic, “Walk on By,” has died. David, who was 91, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Sept.

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  • Lost Decades: Longevity Gap Widening for Blacks, Latinos, Less Educated

    by Paul Kleyman New America Media CHICAGO—The longevity gap between “two Americas” has widened since 1990, says a new study.

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  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History September 6 through September 12 September 6 1905 ----- Alonzo F. Herndon, a wealthy African-American barber and real estate investor, founded the Atlanta Life Insurance Company on this date.

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  • Third New Judge for George Zimmerman

     Third New Judge for George Zimmerman Seminole County Circuit Judge Debra Nelson has been assigned as the new judge to hear the case involving George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

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  • Acceptance Speech Moved Inside

     Acceptance Speech Moved Inside President Barack Obama will give his acceptance speech on Thursday night inside the Time Warner Cable Arena instead of outdoors at the Bank of America Stadium because of the threat of rain.

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Voter ID Card

Court Shoots Down Texas Voter-ID Law

by Frederick H. Lowe
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia struck down Texas’ photo-ID law, which the three-judge panel called the most-stringent in the country, after ruling the law would place a significant financial burden on racial minorities to obtain required identification to vote in November’s election.

“The uncontested record evidence conclusively shows that the implicit costs of obtaining SB14-qualifying ID will fall most heavily on the poor and that a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics who live in poverty,” the justices wrote in their 54-page opinion. “We therefore conclude that SB-14 is likely to lead to retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to effective exercise of the electoral franchise.”

The Texas legislature enacted the photo-ID law, called SB-14, in 2011, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed it into law on May 27, 2011. Lone Star State officials wanted it take effect before November’s presidential election and asked for an expedited hearing after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., denied preclearance under section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Texas is covered under Section 5 because of the state’s history of discriminating against African-American and Hispanic voters.

Texas officials said they will appeal the district court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the District Court’s opinion stands, it probably would not affect the outcome of the election, although Texas' population is 15 to 16 percent black and 33 to 37 percent Hispanic, said Dr. David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank for black elected officials. Texas is a red state that is expected to end up in Mitt Romney's column.

The Advancement Project, a plaintiff in the case, hailed the decision, saying that the U.S. Justice Department reported that as many as 1.4 million eligible Texans lack acceptable identification, and that a disproportionate share of those voters are African-American or Hispanic. The Advancement Project is a civil rights group with offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The Republican-led Texas legislature said it enacted the law to combat in-person voter fraud, but the Justice Department president evidence during a trial in Washington, D.C., that voter fraud in Texas was virtually nonexistent.

In the case titled State of Texas, the plaintiff, vs Eric H. Holder, Jr., the defendant, Texas officials wanted the U.S. District Court to issue a declaratory judgement that SB-14, a newly enacted law requiring in-person voters to present a photo ID, did not have the purpose and would not have the effect of denying the right to vote to people because of their race, color or because of their primary language.

SB14 required in-person voters to identify themselves at the polls with either a driver’s license or a personal ID, a license to carry a concealed weapon, all issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety, which issues driver’s licenses. In a addition, voters would have been able to present a U.S. military ID card, a U.S. citizenship certificate with a photograph and a U.S. passport.

“Unlike Texas’ current code, which allows voters to present either photographic or non-photographic ID, SB14 requires every form of acceptable ID to include a photograph of the voter,” the justices wrote. “Also unlike the current code, SB14 prohibits the use of IDs that have expired more than 60 days before the date of presentation at the polls. Finally, SB14 will prohibit voters from identifying themselves using only a “voter-registration certificate issued by a county registrar.”

If a person does not have acceptable ID to vote, they would have obtain an election-identification certificate, a pocket-sized card from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). In order to do this, a person would have to go to a DPS office. Prospective voters would have to show one piece of a primary ID and two pieces of secondary identification.

A primary piece of ID would have to be an expired Texas driver’s license that has expired a least 60 days but not more than two years before presentation. Prospective voters also would have to show two pieces of secondary identification. These would include an original or certified copy of a birth certificate, a certified copy of a court document, indicating an official change of name or change of gender and U.S. citizenship or naturalization papers with an identifiable photo.

The Texas Department of Public Safety cannot charge for election identification certificates, but the justices noted that obtaining one requires time, access to transportation and in some cases, a good deal of money.

If a person changed his or her name or gender, obtaining a legal change of name or gender would cost at least $152. U.S. citizenship and naturalization papers could cost up to $354 per copy, the court noted

A prospective voter would have to visit a DPS office. If a person born in Texas does not have a certified copy of his or her birth certificate, he or she would have to order one from the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics for $22.

In order to obtain an election-identification certificate, a person would have to travel to a driver’s license office, yet in 81 of Texas’ 254 counties, there are no operational driver’s license offices and many of the offices have limited hours of operation, the justices wrote.

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