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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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  • Court Shoots Down Texas Voter-ID Law

    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.

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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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  • 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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Blacks at voting booths

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. history.

It remains to be seen if history will repeat itself in the 2012 presidential election because states with large African-American populations have enacted photo-ID laws that opponents argue are designed to suppress black-voter turnout in November. Supporters of the photo-ID laws said the laws were enacted to prevent voter fraud, although evidence is scant that fraud exists.

Instances of on-site voter-impersonation fraud are virtually nonexistent.  The greatest potential for voter fraud is associated with the submission and tabulation of absentee ballots.

Groups are challenging photo-ID laws with mixed success. A federal court struck down Texas’ photo ID law, but a Pennsylvania judge upheld the commonwealth’s photo-ID Iaw. Several groups appealed the lower court decision to the Pennyslvania’s Supreme Court.

Sixteen states can request or require a photo ID before a person can vote, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which has offices in Denver, Colo., and Washington, D.C.

The enactment of photo-ID laws comes four years after African Americans voted in large numbers to elect U.S. Sen. Barack Obama the nation’s first black president.

2008 was the first presidential election in which black turnout was higher than white turnout
According to “Blacks and the 2012 Republican National Convention,” a report published by The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 65.3 percent of blacks reported being registered and 60.7 percent reported voting in the 2008. This compares with 59.6 percent of whites who reported voting in 2008 although 66.6 percent of whites said they had registered.

“It was the first presidential election in which black turnout was higher than white turnout,” said Dr. David Bositis, author of the report that was released in August. “The participation gap between white and black electorates in the 2008 election was 1.3 percentage points on registration, favoring whites, and 0.9 percentage points on turnout favoring blacks.”

Nationally, black voter turnout increased 4.4 percentage points in 2008 after increasing by three percentage points from 1996 to 2000 and by an additional three percentage points from 2000 to 2004, said Bositis, who also is senior political analyst at the Joint Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank for black elected officials.

The black voting-age population in the United States was 26.6 million, reports the 2010 U.S. Census Current Population Survey

Bositis added that he did not think there would much of an increase in black turnout in 2012, especially with the enactment of government-issued photo identification laws in states with large black populations.

He is not the only one who feels this way.

ColorOfChange, an online black-political organization, has launched in Ohio, an online-petition drive that is pushing for weekend in-person early voting hours.

The group charged that Jon Husted, Ohio Secretary of State, dropped weekend early voting because of the unprecedented turnout of black voters in the 2008 presidential election. Ohio, which has 18 electoral votes, requires residents to have an ID to vote but not a photo ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The black voting-age population in the United States was 26.6 million, reports the 2010 U.S. Census Current Population Survey.

According to the Joint Center study, the South has the largest proportion of the black voters at 55 percent. The black voting-age population is at least 20 percent of the electorate in seven of the 11 states of the Old Confederacy. African Americans comprise 35 percent of the electorate in Mississippi, 31 percent in Louisiana, 30 percent in Georgia, 27 percent in South Carolina, 25 percent in Alabama, 21 percent in North Carolina and 20 percent in Virginia.

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