September 20, 2012

Judge Issues Certificates of Innocence to Four Men
The men are entitled to nearly $200,000 each under Illinois law by Frederick H. Lowe A Cook County, Ill., judge has issued certificates of innocence to four black men who served long prison terms for a crime that DNA evidence proved they did not commit. On Friday, Judge Paul P.
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Obama Camp Fires Back After Romney’s “47%” Diatribe
by Barry Cooper The Obama campaign wasted little time striking back at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Within hours after a secret videotape emerged of Romney making seemingly disparaging remarks about nearly half the U.S.
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Jackson Gets Two Men Freed from a Gambia Prison
by Frederick H. Lowe Two men who were serving long prison sentences in Gambia have left the West African Country after the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. negotiated their release with the country’s President, Dr.
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The Real Count of Monte Cristo Was a Black Man
Alexandre Dumas wrote the story based in part on his father’s life The Count of Monte Cristo, one of literature’s most-enduring novels, is based on the real life of a black man, who rose from private to general in the French Army, became a valued aide to Napoleon Bonaparte and later, an object of Napoleon's envy, according to the book, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, which hit bookstores on Tuesday.
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Feds Hammer Tool Company Because of Its Racist Hiring Practices
Meyer Tool Inc., a federal contractor that displays on its website photographs of a smiling President George W.
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Homes Headed by Single Black Men See Drop in Poverty
by Frederick H. Lowe The poverty rate for families headed by single-black men has declined since 2010, while poverty rates for households headed by single white and Asian men have increased.
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Transportation Can Help Black Men Find Better-Paying Jobs
by Frederick H. Lowe The Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, will host a special forum on Wednesday, September 26, in Washington, D.C., focused on black men.
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Supreme Court Will Hear Arguments on Affirmative Action
New America Media Q & A by Khalil Abdullah Editor’s Note: On October 10 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that could upend affirmative action policies nationwide.
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FAMU: Drum Major Actively Participated in Hazing
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Capital Outlook by Kanya Stewart (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Robert Champion, Jr.
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Statue of Frederick Douglass to Be Placed in Capitol
President Obama must sign the legislation Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper (TriceEdneyWire.
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Worldwide Employment Outlook Still Bleak for Youth
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The employment outlook for young people worldwide is grim, according to an analysis released September 4 by the International Labor Organization.
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Michigan Business Associations Merge
The Michigan Black Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Black Suppliers on Thursday announced they have merged to increase member access to capital and to help them compete worldwide.
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100 Black Men to Get a New Man
Curley M. Dossman, Jr., vice president of community affairs at Georgia Pacific Co., later this month will be installed as chairman of 100 Black Men of America Inc.
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IRS Asked to Investigate Texas Church That Called for Obama’s Defeat
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked the IRS to investigate an El Paso, Texas, Roman Catholic church after an item in the church bulletin called for the defeat of President Barack Obama in November’s presidential election. St.
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Michelle Obama Will Address the CBC
WASHINGTON (TriceEdneyWire.com) – For the first time during his administration, President Barack Obama will not be the keynote speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Phoenix Awards Dinner this Saturday, an event that brings to a close the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference (CBC-ALC).
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President Obama Fails to Score a Touchdown With Convention Speech
by A. Peter Bailey (TriceEdneyWire.com) - To use a football analogy, during the Democratic National Convention, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, First Lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden advanced the ball for President Obama to the ten yard-line.
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Double Whammy for African Americans
by Julianne Malveaux (TriceEdneyWire.com) - We have learned that African-American unemployment rates stayed level last month with an absurdly high official unemployment rate of 14.1 percent.
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Netanyahu’s “Red Line” Is Just a Red Herring
by Wilmer J. Leon, III (TriceEdneyWire.com) - News sources have reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu requested a meeting with President Obama to discuss tightening restrictions on Iran and that President Obama has rejected his request.
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The NorthStar’s Week in Black History
September 20 through September 26 September 20 1943 ----- A German submarine, U-238, torpedoed the Frederick Douglass, a U. S. cargo ship, on this day.
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Pennsylvania Voter-ID Law Remanded to a Lower Court
by Frederick H. Lowe The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated a lower-court decision, upholding the commonwealth’s restrictive voter Photo-ID law, in a case that easily could be called "The Pennsylvania bureaucracy strikes back." Because the law does not meet PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) issuing guidelines, the law faces significant challenges from the bureaucracy, which could block its implementation.
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Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.

The Poor Could Be Strong Swing Vote

by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Nearly 50 million Americans now are in poverty. One in four children will grow up in an impoverished household. Redressing poverty is a national emergency and a moral imperative. In our money-drenched political debate, the poor receive little attention. Yet, they could be the key swing vote in this election.

Mitt Romney invoked the poor as part of his attack on Barack Obama’s policies. But his own agenda features devastating cuts in basic support for the poor — Medicaid, food stamps, Head Start, aid to poor schools, public housing, training — to help pay for another round of corporate and personal tax cuts, largely pocketed by the very rich.

Democrats have historically been the advocates of the vulnerable. Social Security, the crown jewel of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, is the nation’s greatest anti-poverty program, dramatically reducing misery among seniors. Medicare and Medicaid, centerpieces of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, have provided vital health care to the disabled, the poor, the elderly and the dying. Yet now, Democrats focus their rhetoric on the middle class, and not on the vulnerable.

I grew up in a struggling household, and I can tell you that for the poor, the middle class isn’t the next step; it is a distant shore. The middle class seems rich — two parents, good jobs with health-care benefits, homes, paid vacations, college educations.

The poor live concentrated in urban areas or virtually invisible in rural counties. They live far from where jobs are. They can’t afford a car, so they have the greatest stake in public transportation. Their children suffer the highest infant-mortality rates, the worst child malnutrition, so public health and child nutrition programs are invaluable. They go to the worst schools, often on mean streets in zones of violence and drugs, so aid to education ranks high among their priorities.

Because the poor tend not to vote, they are often ignored by political campaigns seeking to appeal to “likely voters.” But this reality makes the poor potential swing voters. If they show up in large numbers, they can transform an election, particularly one like the current presidential race where there are few undecided voters left and the biggest question is who shows up to vote.

The battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia contain vast areas of impoverished Appalachia. As Lyndon Johnson showed, appealing to the poor in Appalachia helps to de-racialize the poverty vote. In fact, most poor people are not black or brown; they are white, female and young. Their vote or non-vote could be the margin of victory in these key swing states. And appealing to the poor — fighting to raise the minimum wage, defending affordable health care for all, pushing for greater investment in public transport and aid to schools, putting forth an agenda to revitalize our urban core areas — can mobilize non-voters in urban and rural areas.

I know this from personal experience. In 1984, my campaign for the presidency focused on reaching and registering poor and minority voters. In 1986, what one southern Senator called the “new voter” transformed the electorate in Georgia and elsewhere and helped Democrats take back the Senate.

Jesus warned we would be judged by how we treat the “least of these.” Feeding the hungry is a moral imperative. But in a democracy, poor people are potentially rich voters. Their votes count as much as those of wealthy voters, and there are many more poor people.

In a democracy, standing up for the poor is not only morally right, it can be politically powerful.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., heads the Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH coalition, an organization he founded.

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September 20, 2012

The Poor Could Be Strong Swing Vote