A year before he was sworn in as president, Donald Trump vowed that he would go after what he called President Barack Obama’s executive orders. Or, as he crudely put it, his “illegal and overreaching executive orders.”

He repeatedly came back to that threat on the campaign trail, echoing the standard Republican Party hit line that Obama supposedly went way overboard and usurped his presidential authority by using his pen to make law. On day one of his swearing in, he wasted no time in doing exactly what he told an interviewer he would do.

His first act was to sign an executive order nailing the one law above all others that he made a campaign mantra to nail, that is Obamacare. His executive order directs agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions” to any part of Obamacare they choose.

Getting rid of many of Obama’s executive orders won’t be so easy. Some are firmly ensconced as law and will require extensive public comment, hearings and review. That’s a long, tedious, drawn out process.

Others have been in place long enough that government agencies have made them part of their compliance requirements.

Still, nothing, and I mean nothing, drove Republican leaders to fits of anger faster than Obama’s touch of his pen to an executive order. They were hot because he had the power to wield the executive pen in defiance of, and as an end around, every congressional roadblock and obstacle they tossed up to block any and everything that he proposed in his second term.

And because his executive orders had the force of law behind them. So, for instance, when there was zero possibility of getting even the faintest, most tepid, gun control measure through Congress, Obama signed a few executive orders that put some peripheral checks on gun sales. In all, Obama, signed a couple hundred orders.

That was more than enough for the Republicans to threaten to file lawsuits and even drop loud hints that his actions may even warrant impeachment.

The Republican’s hysterical ire at Obama wasn’t lost on Trump. There was absolutely no doubt that he would move with breakneck speed to hit back, and hit back hard, at Obama by going after his executive orders.

Conservative advocacy groups and GOP leaders had a dizzying array of Obama’s executive orders that they demanded be immediately wiped off the books. Clean power plant regulations, transgender bathrooms, overtime pay for federal contracted work, the easing of immigration restrictions and the gun control orders were high on their hit list.

In fact, every single one of Obama’s executive orders has been listed, checked off and targeted for “review” by Trump. Some may survive, but many won’t, and among the many will be those such as gun control, environmental, immigration and work place controls that will soon become ancient history.

Despite the GOP’s rage at Obama for wielding his executive pen, the truth is that he was near the bottom on the list of presidents in the number of executive orders issued. The last president that issued orders at a lower rate than Obama was Grover Cleveland.

Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush issued far more executive orders per day in office than Obama. It’s not really the number or rate of executive orders, however, that Obama has issued that has raised the hackles of the GOP. It’s the executive orders that he issued that gave the GOP ammunition to attempt to intimidate and politically bash Obama.

Now that Obama is out of office, Trump and the GOP’s frontal attack on his executive orders is much more than an angry and indignant party going after executive orders it didn’t like, or restoring what it considers its proper congressional law-making authority.

It’s revenge, pure and simple, against a former president’s legacy. Much of that legacy is intertwined with his willingness to use the power of his office whenever and wherever he thought he could to frontally challenge the GOP to cease its relentless, dogged and destructive campaign of dither, delay, denial and obstructionism to anything that had the White House stamp on it.

The executive orders on gun control were a textbook example of that. Another was the executive order that required prospective federal contractors to disclose labor law violations and give federal agencies more guidance on how to consider labor violations when awarding federal contracts.

That was a measure that was long past due given both the rampant nepotism, cronyism, game-playing and outright racial and gender discrimination by an untold number of businesses that grab federal contracts.

Those two orders drove home that Obama was determined to make a lasting mark by using federal power in the fight against the gun-related carnage that wracked the nation as well as the blatant racial and gender bias in the workplace.

The executive orders on environmental, immigration, and LGBT issues were also landmark measures that would have lasting imprint for his administration. That is what is anathema to Trump and the GOP and this is why they must go.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of “The End of Obamacare 2? (Amazon Kindle). He also is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One and the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

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LOS ANGELES — One day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the nation’s 45th president, more than five million women worldwide marched in solidarity over rights they fear may be lost under the new administration.

According to national reports, the Women’s March on Washington drew more than 1 million protestors from across the country to Washington, D.C., for demonstrations that included well-known celebrities who championed human rights and various social causes, including environmental justice, immigrant rights, workers’ rights and civil rights.  In addition, “Sister Marches” were held in cities worldwide, including Sydney, Berlin, London, Nairobi and Cape Town.

Locally, an estimated 750,000 people poured onto the streets of downtown Los Angeles to demonstrate solidarity with the marchers who rallied in Washington. Men, women and children of all ages and ethnicities participated in the historic display of unity that was captured by national media and cell phone images that were shared around the world via social media.

“Sure, he’s going to help the economy, but I don’t think he knows anything about politics,” said 18-year-old Isay Gonzalez when asked about the new president.

While to some, that might not necessarily be a disqualifying factor, Gonzalez said that could be a concern. “What if it comes down to having wars, and dealing with other countries? He won’t know what to do.”

New President Donald Trump was the target of many of the protest signs carried by women during their march in downtown Los Angeles Jan. 21. An estimated five million marchers turned out for marches that were held in cities around the world. (Photo by Tyrone Cole)

Debbie Wright of Los Angeles said she watched the inauguration of Donald Trump and was disappointed.

“I think it sucked. I really did,” Wright said. “His wife looked good, because she looked like a Jackie Onassis reincarnation, but other than that I wasn’t impressed with that at all.”

Tamika D. Mallory, a national co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington, says the movement was ignited by Teresa Shook, a retired attorney and grandmother living in Hawaii. Shook, who was despondent over the results of the presidential election, sent a Facebook invitation to 40 of her friends inviting them to go march on Washington. That invitation of 40 turned to 10,000 by the next morning.

“It really shows the power of grassroots movements and the power of social media,” said Mallory speaking on MSNBC. “She sent it out concerned with what had happened with the election and since then we’ve been able to really harness that energy and bring so many people into the fold who want to be there on January 21to stand up for our rights.”

“I think that Donald Trump is a bad man,” said actor and producer John Kapelos, who was among the supporters marching in Los Angeles. “I don’t think that he’s well intentioned. I don’t think that he’s very smart.

“I think that he’s stirred up a lot of resentment, hatred, racism. I think he’s one of the worst things that’s ever happened to the United States. I believe that he’s all about his ego and his narcissism. I think the [inauguration] speech was mired in baseless reasoning and stupidity and also hatred for the working person and for the ethnic person. The black and the white and the people that voted for him are voting against their own interests,” he said.

Miguel Moran of Los Angeles said he believes the Trump administration may be able to slow down illegal immigration, but may not be able to totally prevent it from happening.

“We’re Mexican, you know,” Moran said. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to come over here. Whether you send us back or not. You know, we come here to work and support our families.”

“This reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger getting nominated for governor with no political background,” said Kevin McClendon. “Trump is who he is. I don’t like it, but I can’t change it.”

State Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, who was among the speakers on a stage across the street from City Hall, made a plea to protect access to health care.

“I know everything isn’t perfect,” Mitchell said of the Affordable Care Act. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going backwards. … We cannot allow the federal government to replace Obamacare with trumped up care.”

Mitchell was among those who sought to engage the crowd to organize beyond the one-day march.

Contributing writer Tami DeVine and City News Service also contributed to this report.

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Listening to all the black chatter about the post-Obama era, all the indignation, the whining and the lamenting about Donald Trump, makes me think about the Standing Rock protest and standoff in North Dakota.

In April 2016, Standing Rock Sioux elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, began a resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline that soon grew to thousands of people. The protesters refused to leave even under orders from government powers and in the face of armed national guardsmen, pepper spray, attack dogs and police in riot gear.

They set up a small village, lived in tents and trailers, and hunkered down for the long haul. Then the cold weather came, and boy was it cold.

To add to the protesters’ misery, police used water cannons on them in the freezing cold. Temperatures dropped to 20 below, not to mention the wind chill, and in November two feet of snow fell in the area. Yet the protesters said they will not leave until the pipeline is rerouted away from their sacred land and the water sources they depend upon. You reading this, Flint residents?

Despite 141 protesters being arrested, bringing the total number of arrests since the protests began to more than 400, Chairman Dave Archambault said, “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is not backing down from this fight. … We are guided by prayer, and we will continue to fight for our people. We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline.”

That’s what we call “sustained persistence,” which obviously is a redundant term, and we need “sacrificial resistance.” It reminds me of those who withstood the fire hoses and dogs during the civil and voting rights battles. It also brings attention to the importance of maintaining, supporting and sustaining our protests over the long haul rather than simply a day or two.

Not since the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted for 381 days, have black folks demonstrated the will and commitment to sacrifice for long periods of time for our causes.

Today we have protests that last for a few hours; we hear a couple of speeches and return home to await the next call to do the same thing. Think about how many protests black people have called over just the last five years.

Think about our tepid responses to the police killings of Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling and many others. We get “fired up” but we are not really “ready to go” because we end up going nowhere and we fail to resolve the problems we are protesting.

The recent march led by Al Sharpton was called, “We shall not be moved.” Well, the title was certainly correct; we have not moved since that one-day march, and I have not seen any positive results that came from that protest against Donald Trump. Have we simply become professional marchers, complainers, and paper tigers?

Unlike the folks at Standing Rock, our leaders do not appear willing to live in tents in the freezing cold and stay in protest mode no matter what. We call for “boycotts” of a certain mall or a certain store, and sustain it for a day (Black Friday).

We say, “Boycott Christmas,” only to catch the after-Christmas sales, the MLK Day sales, the black history sales, and the tax refund sales that come in the ensuing months. Maybe our protest leaders have grown weary of marching and doing anything over a sustained period of time. Maybe they just want to impress us with their bombastic, threatening and angry rhetoric.

They want to get us fired up and ready to go, but they don’t want to go with us.

Speaking of rhetoric, if black folks would simply put as much energy into appropriate action as we expend on discussing issues that will not advance us one iota, or complaining about Trump, or lamenting about Obama leaving, we would move far beyond our present state.

Trump is large and in charge; Barack Obama is playing golf in Palm Springs. They are doing just fine. What about us though?

We must revisit the days of Montgomery, the days of sacrifice, and the days of sustained persistence and resolute resistance. Expend our energy doing things that will result in progress, on some level, for our own people.

Find something that really matters not only to you but to your children’s future, like the Standing Rock protesters, and plan to see it through for the long term. Temporary protests bring temporary fixes, if they bring about any change at all.

Take a lesson from this country. When another nation does something we don’t like, the first response is economic sanctions that last for years if we don’t get what we want. We should be so smart.

James Clingman is one of the nation’s most prolific writers on economic empowerment for black people. His latest book, “Black Dollars Matter! Teach Your Dollars How to Make More Sense,” is available on his website, Blackonomics.com.

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Foreign powers also will not be idle spectators. They will interpose, the confusion will increase, and dissolution of the union ensue. – Alexander Hamilton, 1787

The first few days of Donald Trump’s presidency have seen what may be the beginning of the end of the Affordable Care Act, an average annual hike of $500 for middle-class homeowners’ mortgage insurance premiums, a hint at a re-invasion of Iraq and a shift in the Department of Justice’s effort to protect voting rights.

Yet, the overwhelming cloud that hangs over the Trump administration is the suggestion of Russian interference in the election. Investigators from six different U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been examining possible links between Russian officials and Trump’s presidential campaign.

The cloud hangs not only over Trump’s presidency, but over American democracy itself. Preservation of the integrity of our democratic process depends upon the aggressive pursuit of the truth — and the full cooperation of President Trump and his advisors in that pursuit.

Media reports indicate that investigations into Trump’s Russian ties began as far back as last spring — before the FBI received the notorious dossier alleging that Russian operatives held compromising information about Trump, and that there was a continuing exchange of information between the Russian government and Trump associates.

Any concrete evidence in support of these allegations would be damaging to Trump’s presidency. And failure to investigate them would be even more damaging to the nation itself.

Democracy, while a founding principle of the United States, has been a work in progress from the days when only white, male — and in some states, Protestant Christian — property owners were permitted to vote. Gradually, over two centuries, the franchise was extended to non-landowners, Native Americans, women and people of color.

We still are engaged in the business of expanding and protecting our democracy, fighting back racially motivated voter suppression laws and contending with the anti-democratic effects of the Electoral College.

Our goal must be a full and true democracy, where every citizen has an equal opportunity to be heard, without the corrupting influence of foreign agents working against American interests.

If a foreign government interfered to boost one candidate’s chances, it’s not merely an affront to the losing candidate; it’s an affront to every single honest, voting citizen. It’s an affront to American democracy.

Because President Trump was elevated to office by the anachronistic Electoral College, counter to the choice of a majority of voters, he owes the American people an exceptional level of deference. He should go to every length to demonstrate that his own conduct, at least, was above-board and beyond reproach. Any attempt to stonewall an investigation should be viewed with the utmost skepticism.

His public statements on Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, have been contradictory at the very least. In 2013, 2014 and 2015, he said he had a relationship with Putin, had spoken with him and had gotten to know him.

In the third presidential debate, he said he had never met him. In the second debate he said he has no dealings with Russia and no businesses there. But his son, Donald Trump Jr., said in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” This confusion should raise serious questions.

President Trump appears to be engaged in a campaign of disinformation about his election — claiming without evidence that he was denied a popular victory by millions of illegal votes. His apparent obsession extends to making repeated false statements about attendance at his inauguration.

His preoccupation could complicate our intelligence agencies’ attempts to ferret out the truth. It’s our hope that he will see that any failure to cooperate or to encourage a full investigation would be crippling to the nation.

During the inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, much was made about the “peaceful transfer of power” that is and should be an example for the world. But that peaceful transition depends upon the strict balance of powers as outlined in the Constitution.

It’s up to our legislative and judicial branches to serve as a check on the executive, beginning with the investigation into foreign influence.

Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League.

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As a progressive who worked hard to help get Hillary Clinton elected, it is challenging for me to accept Donald Trump as president.

But he won. At least for now, I have to make the best of a bad situation. Which means progressives like me will have to both resist the Trump administration’s odious policies, and also pressure — and even cooperate with — the administration to implement policies that reflect our worldview.

That is why I was interested to see a recent letter sent to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by three Democratic members of Congress.

Signed by Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the letter urges the CFPB to look into bad actors operating in the rooftop solar industry.

What we are talking about here are those salespeople that go door to door and bombard consumers with telemarketing calls, urging them to put solar panels on their rooftops. Now, for some people, rooftop solar energy makes both environmental and financial sense. That is why I generally support the industry.

But what concerns me — and those three Democratic congressmen — are the shady operators that mislead potential customers about the cost-saving benefits of installing those panels. The letter outlined three major concerns.

First, that new customers may be unaware that the panels can cost upwards of $15,000 and that they will have to pay that money back. The purchase can generate an additional lein against their home, making it harder to sell their house, which also decreases its value.

For those Americans barely getting by and counting on every dollar of equity in their house, this is problematic. It is especially true if they hope to sell their home to fund retirement.

Second, salespeople sometimes tell customers that they will save a lot of money on their utility bills because the price of electricity from utility companies is going up. That simply is not accurate.

In reality, many people’s electric bills are coming down, stabilizing or going up only single digits. That is because of cheap and abundant natural gas used to produce electricity.

Solar panel customers don’t see any savings on their electric bills, but have to pay back the cost of buying or leasing the panels. Every month, people are out of pocket more — not less — money.

Third, the letter to the CFPB points out that many of these solar panel sales pitches include promises of “no money down” and other high-pressure sales tactics. Anyone who has ever dealt with a shady salesperson — whether for solar panels or a used car — knows that these tactics are not the tools of an honest broker.

Plus, as the Wall Street Journal exposed in January, we know many solar panel salespeople are pitching so-called government loans that can be used to help make homes more energy efficient.

In reality, these Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE loans, are a type of loan which gives creditors top priority on securing repayment — even priority over a mortgage.

No wonder, according to the Journal, that PACE loans are likely “the fastest-growing type of financing in the U.S.”

While there have been rumblings that the Trump administration would curtail the CFPB, the letter from the three congressmen illustrates why this regulatory agency is important. Action against these shady rooftop solar companies, who seem to target communities of color, is one way this administration could showcase its commitment to the working people who supported it.

Indeed, as President Trump hosted a “listening session” with some black Republicans “in honor” of Black History Month, he made no specific policy commitments. It would have been fantastic had he taken this small issue on, signaling that he understands the exploitation that some communities experience because of this solar chicanery.

The solar industry generates more than 200,000 jobs across the nation. While Trump might not be concerned about producing clean energy, he says he cares about protecting American workers.

That is why I am urging his administration, and the CFPB, to take steps to eliminate the bad actors in rooftop solar. Unless we do, people will catch on and walk away from solar.

That will hurt our economy and our fight to beat climate change. Hopefully, one out of two of those concerns is enough for the new administration to take action to protect consumers.

Julianne Malveaux is an author, an economist and President Emerita of Bennett College for Women. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy” is available on Amazon

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Maybe I should watch more CNN or MSNBC to be convinced, since most black people seemingly regard Donald Trump as some sort of abrupt political mutation who violates America’s traditions.

What I see in Trump is America’s traditional reflection in the mirror. I see the exact same hardline and hostile government that the founders deliberately engineered with deep political and racial contradictions, where “democracy in practice” has always deviated from “democracy on paper.”

So, although Trump is new to American politics, Trump’s politics are not new to America. And while Trump’s style is unorthodox, his ideals do not run counterclockwise against tradition.

After all, how do you think America became the most powerful nation in the world in record time? Certainly not by handholding or being non-militaristic like Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of nationhood.

Nor by safeguarding the genuine interests of blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims at the expense of diluting the staunch Euro-centricities of America’s ideals, identity and institutions.

Sure, it’s safer to hitchhike onto the patriotic bandwagon or pretend to not see America’s ugliness in the mirror, especially knowing your career or fame can nosedive.

That keeps celebrities from “biting the racial hands that feed them.” But the power, development, and national security enjoyed by Americans did not materialize by adherence to precepts of morality or equality or nonviolence or tolerance.

Regardless of “Kum-ba-ya” accounts that media commentators get paid millions to peddle, this country was forged into a “puritanical superpower” by white men who thought and acted in the very despotic and swashbuckling “American ways” that Trump now loosely babbles and brags openly. Be it impulsive comments about immigration and “bad hombre” Mexicans; or torturing Muslims with “waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse;” or military operations to “bomb the heckout of them;” or contrary to President Barack Obama’s romanticized plan to close Guantanamo Bay, Trump itches to “load it up with bad dudes.”

On election night, after Trump dethroned Democratic heir Hillary Clinton, (subsequent to manhandling 16 other average-minded Republican candidates), well-paid media personality Van Jones tearfully whimpered: “How do I explain this to my children?”

Well, as black people who did not arrive as colonists on the Mayflower or Arabella, it’s actually quite easy … once you do not moralize the founders with credit they never really earned regarding equality. Then you address three traditional traits of Americanization.

First, explain that America ultimately became a multiethnic nation and the adopted homeland for African people — not because of the goodness of democracy — but because of the capitalist aggression and belligerent expansion of the very same U.S. government that Trump now spearheads as a traditional throwback who the founders would be well-pleased.

Contrary to popular immigration notions, America was founded with ethno-nationalist aspirations.

Under George Washington the Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted citizenship to “free white person[s] . . . of good character.”

And like Thomas Jefferson, who detailed a 25-year scheme to send all blacks to Africa, Abraham Lincoln sought the same in his effort to transform America into a nation for “free white people everywhere.”

So the Trump Doctrine to ban Muslims, build walls and block Mexicans is neither as un-American nor unprecedented as the media purports.

Second, as Mos Def says, you then “Add the Mathematics” of 85 percent of U.S. presidents. Explain that from George Washington to John Kennedy, 35 of America’s 43 presidents (Democrats and Republicans) prior to Obama, governed over administrations where either chattel slavery or boldfaced segregation was legislatively and violently enforced from 1776 to 1964.

Third, explain that Trump’s appeal to nearly 63 million voters festered within the modern-day cracks of racial indifference and immoralities that both parties and the remaining eight presidents (Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush) left unattended.

As Trump-like Republicans have inevitably emerged in consequence, Democrats have in turn allowed breeding grounds of inequalities to fester in areas of wealth, health, housing, education, unemployment, street violence, police shootings, incarceration and recidivism.

Although black America’s present-day instabilities link largely to America’s past inhumanities, both Democratic and Republican establishments have colluded to reject Rep. John Conyer’s H.R. 40 legislation (since 1997) to merely “examine the institution and impact of slavery, and make recommendations on remedies.”

Further, neither party regards Lincoln’s 13th Amendment as problematic even though it underhandedly permits slavery to exist “as a punishment for [black] crime” … which fomented convict leasing of yesterday and mass incarceration today.

But now, after centuries of unending struggle, the same Democratic Party is leading black people to flood the streets to condemn Trump’s presidency after mere days. That’s like someone conniving you to blame the ground for long-term damages after pushing you off a cliff.

Although anti-Trumpness does have its relevancy, the fundamental ire of conscientious blacks should target the Democratic establishment for its unprincipledness and derelict failure to reciprocate centuries of unselfish black loyalty.

Comparatively, while Trump brashly swings sharp-edged swords in every direction to preserve white privilege and power, Democrats exercise a stealth version of white privilege and power through artful language, customized media and “death by a thousand cuts” tactics.

Either way, as a body politic, black people occupy the bottom-most rungs of society … just as the founders traditionally devised.

Ezrah Aharone is an adjunct associate professor of political science at Delaware State University. He is also the author of “The Sovereign Psyche, Sovereign Evolution and Pawned Sovereignty.” He can be reached at www.EzrahSpeaks.com. 

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Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office have left Americans reeling from what Republican speechwriter Peggy Noonan called his “cloud of crazy.”

His cabinet nominees seem intentionally perverse: an education secretary who has no clue about public schools; an energy secretary who wanted to eliminate the department; a treasury secretary from Goldman Sachs who ran a home foreclosure factory.

So when a white nationalist sympathizer, Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, was confirmed to be attorney general, it passed by as just another absurdity.

The coverage of the confirmation battle focused primarily on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s outrageous muzzling of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she tried to read a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Sessions.

The muzzling was an unforgivable indignity. Lost in the furor was the thrust of King’s letter.

She was writing to urge the Republican-led Senate of that time to reject President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Sessions to the federal bench because he had “used the power of his office as U.S. attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot.”

Sessions had opposed the Voting Rights Act, made racist statements and falsely prosecuted black civil rights leaders seeking to register people to vote in Alabama. He was an ardent and unrelenting opponent of civil rights. The Republican Senate rejected his nomination.

Sessions views have not changed. He opposed Supreme Court decisions striking down laws banning homosexual sex and same-sex marriage. He voted against equal pay for women and against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, and he argued that it would be a “stretch” to call grabbing a woman’s genitals — as the president boasted of doing — assault.

He is leading opponent of immigration reform and supported Trump’s ban on Muslims.

On civil rights he learned, as Strom Thurmond’s late operative Lee Atwater put it, that “you can’t say [the N-word] — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like … states’ rights and all that stuff.”

Sessions remains a fierce advocate of states’ rights over civil rights. Even as he joined 97 senators in voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006, he gave a speech declaring its enforcement sections unconstitutional.

When the Supreme Court’s conservative gang of five gutted the law, he praised their decision, saying preposterously, “If you go to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, people aren’t being denied the vote because of the color of their skin.”

Even as he was saying that, states across the South were preparing a raft of laws to make voting more difficult for African-Americans and the young. Striking down the voter ID law in North Carolina, the federal appeals court found that the new provisions “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision,” while providing “inept remedies” for an alleged problem of voter fraud that is nonexistent.

Now Sessions will take his states’ rights views to the Justice Department. He will have more power than George Wallace ever had.

Wallace had state power. Sessions has national power with a state agenda, with thousands of lawyers under his command. He will help shape the Supreme Court. And simply by inaction — by refusing to enforce the Voting Rights Act as states act to restrict voting — he can do more to undermine civil rights than Wallace could by standing in the schoolhouse door.

Every senator who voted for this nomination shares the shame. This isn’t or should not have been a partisan question. This is a question of whether the Constitution that Abraham Lincoln fought a Civil War to forge and the Rev. Martin Luther King led a movement to enforce will be respected.

Donald Trump and the Republican Senate have put in office someone who is committed to undermining that Constitution. He is in position to poison the well of justice for a long time.

On the campaign trail, Trump wooed African American voters, saying given disproportionate unemployment and poverty, they should vote for him.

“What have you got to lose?” he asked. By making Sessions the next attorney general, Trump has shown us what we have lost: a Department of Justice committed to equal rights, ready to defend the right to vote. People of color, immigrants, the LGBT and women are likely to experience justice denied directly and the country as a whole will suffer as justice is defiled.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is president and founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition.

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There are two subjects in particular that the Donald Trump administration lies about the most: crime and voting.

During a recent interview on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” President Trump’s senior advisor, Stephen Miller, lied about voter fraud during the 2016 elections.

Miller said that, “And you have 14 percent of noncitizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic.”

That statement is simply false. Miller couldn’t produce a single shred of evidence when Stephanopoulos pressed him on the subject.

But Miller was just repeating what his boss said shortly before the election.

At a rally in Cleveland, Ohio on Oct. 23, presidential candidate Trump said that, “14 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote.”

President Trump entered office lying about voter fraud and threatening an investigation. Civil rights leaders have called for an investigation of voter suppression during the 2016 presidential election.

More recently, the lying crossed over into the topic of an increased “crime wave” that doesn’t exist. Now, the lies about a vast American crime wave and record levels of illegal voting seem to be coming together.

On Jan. 23, during a meeting with members of Congress and the White House, President Trump lied about voting again. Trump and his 31-year-old aide Miller, who was sent out on all the Sunday morning talk shows on Feb. 12, appear to be lying for two reasons.

First, Trump can’t come to terms with the fact that Hillary Clinton received almost three million more votes than he did, and second, the Trump administration would appear to be laying the groundwork to justify a new law that would make it harder for people to vote, particularly minorities.

Trump’s attorney general, former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, had a history of prosecuting African Americans who were registering too many other African Americans to vote as an assistant U.S. attorney. Having provided no explanation or apology for his past prosecutions, particularly that of the late Albert Turner Sr., there’s no reason to believe that Sessions won’t pick up where he left off in Alabama in the 1970s.

Even though Sessions’ past statements and actions as a prosecutor in Alabama are clear, the public perception of Sessions, the man, is mixed.

Turner’s son, Albert Turner Jr., issued a statement endorsing Sessions that said, “I believe that he is someone with whom I, and others in the civil rights community can work if given the opportunity.”

Still, American history of the disenfranchisement of African American (and other minority) voters is also clear. In the late 1800s, it was a poll tax, literacy tests and other requirements that black voters were unlikely to meet. Today it’s voter ID, closing polling places, cutting Sunday voting and purging voting rolls.

The continued strategy used by present-day Republicans is still the “Southern Strategy” — they’ve just added Hispanics to the list of targets. The Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids started only two days after Attorney General Sessions was sworn-in.

“The crackdown on illegal criminals is merely the keeping of my campaign promise. Gang members, drug dealers and others are being removed!” Trump tweeted on Feb. 12.

Trump tweeted about his “crackdown on illegal criminals” a day after El Paso ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa stated that, “ICE regularly conducts targeted enforcement operations during which additional resources and personnel are dedicated to apprehending deportable foreign nationals.”

Many immigrant rights advocates knew the raids were not routine before anyone communicated anything.

“The president is lying when he says deporting immigrants is about fighting crime,” wrote Rep. Luis Gutierrez on Feb. 10. “The president wants to show off and it appears he has unleashed the Department of Homeland Security to kick out large numbers of immigrants and anyone they encounter, without much oversight, review or due process.

Gutierrez, who represents parts of Chicago, continued: “There is very little official information on what appears to be a new Trump deportation initiative. Homeland Security is deporting moms … under the smoke screen of criminal or anti-terror actions.”

Republicans have lost the popular vote over two presidential elections since 2000. The demographics in the country are becoming more black and brown and researchers estimate that the share of white voters will fall a few percentage points every four years.

Trump, Stephen Miller and many others in the Republican Party are well aware of the math.

Lauren Victoria Burke is a political analyst who speaks on politics and African American leadership. She can be contacted by email at LBurke007@gmail.com and on Twitter at @LVBurke.

The post Trump is using alternative facts on voter fraud and crime appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

The Democratic National Committee was, by any standard, a wreck and a ruin during the 2016 presidential campaign.

It got pounded for misstep after misstep that included: poor, and disconnected leadership, leaked emails, gross favoritism, petty infighting, blatant manipulation of the primaries and gross cluelessness about the Donald Trump threat.

How much of this is past history in the Trump era is the big question that will in part be answered when the Democrats pick a new leader.

The jockeying for the top spot has been ferocious with one time front-runner Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison the early betting favorite. He has Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and every progressive behind him.

He has their loud warnings that if the Democrats continue to be the centrist, compromising, top-heavy corporate-backed party, it can kiss millions of progressive voter’s good-bye again.

It will have about as much energy as a burned-out battery in trying to rev up voters for the crucial 2018 mid-term elections.

The counter is that the Democrats flopped precisely because Trump bagged a big chunk of the angry, alienated and frustrated blue collar and rural whites. The Democrats can get most or many of them back by crafting a message to them about runaway jobs and economic security.

This supposedly requires a Democrat in the mold of Barack Obama, not Sanders, to do it. There are two truths behind the clashing views of what a DNC chair should be and where he or she should take the party.

The Democratic National Committee is tasked with the chore of spotting and recruiting able talent to run as Democrats for office, then helping to raise money for the Democratic candidates and incumbents, putting volunteer and paid professional boots on the ground for their campaigns, and mounting an all-out get out the vote blitz in the weeks leading up to the election to put Democrats locally and nationally over the top.

That takes a well-oiled, well-coordinated ground game to put as many Democrats as possible in Congress and to keep the ones who are already there.

That’s only the start. It also takes someone who can inspire, cajol, and engage legions of Hispanics, blacks, and youth voters who were missing in action from the polls in 2016. An even greater number of them have been chronic no-shows in mid-term elections.

Ellison is the progressive’s progressive who says that he’s the man who can do what Sanders did in the Democratic primaries and fire up a big chunk of those potential voters.

The other bitter truth is that Trump won many disconnected and frustrated white voters because he welded their latent racist, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, pseudo patriotic sentiment to their loathing of, and alienation from, the Republican Party and the Democrat’s beltway, out of touch with Main Street crowd.

That’s a tough hurdle for a progressive or a centrist Democrat to overcome. The better option for the DNC remains padding the number of Hispanics, blacks, women and youth in the five or six states that elect presidents.

The gaping disparity between the Republicans and Democrats in voter turnout in the primaries was not in the tens of thousands but millions. The GOP energized its base like it hadn’t been done in years, as well as firing up lots of young persons who in years past would likely not have been caught dead voting for a Republican presidential candidate.

At the same time, the Democratic turnout has been to be charitable tepid and this in the face of the spirited, impassioned face-off between Clinton and Sanders whose populist, hit Wall Street hard message, touched a huge nerve among legions of young and not so young voters.

The universal consensus is that future elections will come down to which party can get the greatest number of voters to the polls to vote for their candidate in every race from the White House to congressional and statewide offices. It’s a numbers game pure and simple.

In the 2014 midterms and in the states Trump needed to win in 2016, the GOP showed that it could get those numbers out. The Democrats can do the same. After all, despite the GOP’s well-tuned ground game and Trump’s phony man-of-the-people, anti-Washington establishment hucksterism, the Democrats still had a voter edge of several million over the GOP. That is huge for whoever winds up in the top spot at the DNC.

The DNC chair will also have the anger of millions at Trump’s outrages to build on. However, if the DNC is just more warmed over soup of the past, then the numbers won’t mean much.

The question is can and will the Democrats be able to make their numbers bulge over the GOP and the rage at Trump mean something? That’s the big question and challenge for the Democratic National Committee and its next chair.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of “In Scalia’s Shadow: The Trump Supreme Court” (Amazon Kindle). He also is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One and the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

The post THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: How Democrats can win in the Trump era appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

At a candidates forum in early 2015, then presidential candidate Donald Trump, without a blink, said, “I don’t know if he loves America.”

The “he” Trump referred to was, of course, then President Barack Obama. The slap at Obama was simply the latest in Trump’s by then three-year campaign to vilify, impugn, slander and harass Obama as not only not an American citizen, but not a legitimate president.

Trump’s ruthless, near obsessive, vendetta of lies about Obama paid big dividends early on. It got him briefly in the hunt for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. That made him a political household name. Three years later, in 2015, it got him to the top of the Republican presidential pack and kept him there during the primaries. It then got him the biggest prize of all, the White House.

From the start, Obama was Trump’s political meal ticket. When things got dull or there was a momentary rough patch on the campaign trial, Trump had Obama as his ready-made whipping boy.

Nothing has changed. With Democrats screaming for answers about Trump’s relations with Russia and Vladimir Putin, and even some GOP leaders feeling the heat and making weak soundings about a probe or two here and there, Trump quickly trotted out his Obama meal ticket.

This time it’s the ludicrous claim that Obama wiretapped him during the campaign, complete with the demand that Congress investigate Obama. It’s tempting to simply chalk this up as yet another Trump ploy to deflect attention from his Russia connection, and in part it is. But there’s more, much more to this.

Trump’s persistent use of Obama as his foil isn’t just to slander his presidency. It’s to slander him. It isn’t just political, it is personal. The two can’t be separated.

Trump repeatedly made clear during the early stages of his campaign that if he got in the White House he would sign any and every executive order he could to try and halt, gut or obliterate every initiative that Obama had ever put in place. He’s been as good as his word.

Trump’s assault on Obama’s initiatives normally would have been the end of it. Presidents from an opposing party to varying degrees quickly sign executive orders to roll back some of their predecessor’s initiatives and actions when they take office.

However, Trump’s obsessive attacks on Obama have another aim beyond mere personal vindictiveness and deflecting attention from his disastrous administration. It sends the strong signal to his base that he will try and demolish everything that they loathed about Obama; not just his policies, but him personally.

Obama was an eight-year embarrassment to the chronic Obama haters. He was liberal. He was a Democrat. And most odious to them, he was black.

Tea Party demonstrators greeted Obama at many stops during his first two years in office with placards, signs and pictures that depicted him in the most lewd, grotesque and often animal-like characterizations. This went way beyond the bounds of normal political attacks and criticism of a president. It was blatantly personal, and showed the depth of the personal distaste many had for Obama and they were not shy about showing it.

At points during his campaign, Trump made no effort to correct or reprimand anyone at his townhalls and rallies who got up and vilified Obama in personal terms. That reinforced the point that Trump would make again and again that Obama was not fit from a political or personal standpoint to occupy the White House.

Even Trump’s very belated acknowledgement that Obama was an American citizen was said matter of fact. There was absolutely no elaboration, let alone showing any sign of contrition for waging his ruthless and prolonged campaign to slur him as an alien.

Trump set the template early in his political game about how to go after Obama. That was to pithily toss out a sensational, outrageous accusation against or about Obama without a shred of evidence to back it up and then sit back and watch the media plaster it out as a headline or top headline news feature.

The damage was done and the mission of getting tongues wagging about Obama and legions believing there must be some truth to it was accomplished.

The wiretapping charge fits the pattern to the letter. Trump doubled down on that by demanding a congressional probe into it. The hope is that the more who believe there’s any truth to this will serve to whittle away yet another tiny chunk from Obama’s well-established legacy of personal honor and integrity.

The charge will, of course, go nowhere because it’s another Trump lie. But that’s less important than making the accusation and getting the media and public headline hit on Obama. And it won’t be the end.

We can be sure that Trump won’t rest until he’s destroyed Obama’s political legacy, and Obama as well.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of “In Scalia’s Shadow: The Trump Supreme Court” (Amazon Kindle). He also is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One and the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

The post THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Trump aims to destroy Obama’s legacy appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

In “A Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens contrasted the plight of the poor in France with the lavish wealth of the aristocracy, the city of need with the city of greed.

That harsh exploitation eventually erupted in the French Revolution, and the brutal revenge of the revolutionaries on their former oppressors.

In some ways, Selma and Shelby County, Alabama, represent our tale of two cities.

Fifty-two years ago, John Lewis, Hosea Williams and a host of ordinary heroes were beaten by Alabama state troopers as they sought to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, marching for the right to vote. The demonstration followed nearly 250 years of slavery, the white lash against Reconstruction following the Civil War, and another six decades of legal apartheid and segregation.

In Selma, the modern civil rights movement, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, chose nonviolence over violence, reconstruction over revolution and forgiveness over revenge. The Selma beatings shamed a nation, and helped Lyndon Johnson drive through the Voting Rights Act and finally put an end to segregation.

Four years ago, a gang of five right-wing justices on the Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case called Shelby County v. Holder that gutted the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Most southern states — and many northern states led by right-wing governors — moved quickly to pass restrictions on voting designed to make it harder for people of color, college students, the poor, workers, the disabled and the elderly to vote.

Voter ID requirements, gerrymandering, limiting early voting, no same-day on-site voter registration, eliminating Souls to the Polls Sundays, packing and stacking political districts, cutting polling stations — all were designed to constrict, not expand the right to vote.

And now we have a tale of two cities once more.

Fifty-two years ago in Selma, we were full of hope. Fifty-two years later, with Shelby County, we are filled with foreboding. Selma represented expansion, Shelby County contraction. Selma was about integration; Shelby County is about separation. Selma led to an assertion of federal, constitutional rights. Shelby County reasserted states’ rights.

Fifty-two years ago, the U.S. attorney general and the Justice Department were leading on voting rights and enforcing the law.

Fifty-two years later, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, born in Selma but aligned with Shelby, is withdrawing legal protections for the right to vote and claiming the Voting Rights Act is an intrusion on the states.

Fifty-two years ago, we had a Texan, Lyndon Johnson, in the White House, launching a war on poverty. Today, we have a New Yorker, Donald Trump, in the White House launching a war on the poor. Lyndon Johnson called on our better angels; Donald Trump summons our darker fears. A tale of two presidents.

And across America, as the wealthiest few capture virtually all of the rewards of growth, we see once more a tale of two cities, one of lavish excess, one of harsh struggle.

America’s middle class is sinking, home ownership is down, life expectancy is down, wages are stagnant at best, and good jobs are scarce.

King’s civil rights movement never achieved its final goal: economic justice. And now across lines of region, race and religion, most Americans struggle to stay afloat in a nation of obscene and growing inequality.

Donald Trump claimed to lead a movement that would change that. But his cabinet is stacked with bankers and billionaires. His first actions are items on the CEO wish list.

His budget seeks tax cuts for the rich and corporations while slashing support for working people and the vulnerable. He seems intent on making the contrasting tale of two cities even starker.

When Alabama played Clemson for the national collegiate football championship, the two schools had black quarterbacks, both black and white players, and black and white fans, cheering for their respective teams. That was the spirit of Selma.

When North Carolina, Texas and other states constricted the right to vote, when states refused to expand Medicaid to allow the working poor health care, when states passed laws designed to bust unions and worker power, that was the spirit of Shelby County.

And people of conscience across America have to stand and march once more. We will either build a more just society or we will face a far harsher reaction.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is president and founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition.

The post Foreboding Shelby ruling replaces hope of Selma appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

Compiled by Billie Jordan in the mid-Wilshire District.

RONNIE G.
Beverly Park
“You mean you want to know how I feel about terrorists coming into the country? I want the terrorists to stay out. And productive, peaceful immigrants who want to become citizens — let them in.”

PAUL HEINZ
Hollywood
“We all know that Saudi Arabia boarded and funded the 9/11 hijackers. Trump conveniently left Saudi Arabia off the list of countries whose citizens would be heavily vetted.”

AL G.
Hancock Park
“I don’t think much of Trump. I just think the new ban will have a better chance getting past the courts then the other one.”

The post STREET BEAT: ‘What do you think about Trump’s revised travel ban?’ appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

The reviews of Donald Trump’s first 100 days have generally focused on his failures, flip-flops and follies. We’ve heard a lot about what he’s failed to achieve, but far too little about what he is intent on doing.

Trump’s time in office so far has been a systematic and vicious assault on civil rights. The progress that was won with struggle, sacrifice and legislation is being subverted by ink and administrative actions and deregulation.

Trump is intent on rolling back the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and in his first 100 days the damage has already begun.

He appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a judge with a record of rulings undermining the rights of workers, women, the LGBTQ community and protections of the environment and democracy.

Gorsuch, selected from a list provided by the far-right Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, is so extreme that he was confirmed only after Republicans overturned the Senate’s long-established rules to get him confirmed with a mere majority. Gorsuch’s accession to the court now reconstitutes a five-person activist right-wing majority that will continue to undermine voting rights, worker rights and civil rights.

Trump appointed Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as his attorney general, a man who derides the Voting Rights Act as “intrusive” and celebrates the Shelby decision that undermined it.

Sessions reversed the Justice Department’s position on Texas’ racially discriminatory voter ID law. He has reversed the commitment to phase out private for-profit prisons and has moved to abandon vital police accountability measures that had bipartisan support.

He’s threatening sanctuary cities while gearing up for mass deportations that would break up families and separate mothers from children.

Trump issued his Muslim travel ban, an executive order barring citizens of selected Muslim-majority nations from visiting the United States, although federal courts blocked it as an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom. Trump’s toxic rhetoric has been followed by an increase in hate crimes across the country.

To head the Department of Education, Trump appointed billionaire Betsy DeVos, who for years has devoted herself to undermining public schools and who defends deep cuts in everything from support for schools in poor neighborhoods to Pell grants that help the children of working families afford college.

Trump has given his economic policy over to former Goldman Sachs bankers, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Economic Council head Gary Cohn, and they have rolled out plans to give the very rich deep tax cuts that they will use to justify slashing programs vital to working people, including Medicaid, education and even Meals On Wheels.

Trump has stacked his cabinet with committed opponents of the missions of the very departments they head: Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, Ben Carson at Housing and Urban Development, Rick Perry at Energy, Alex Acosta at Labor.

Trump has signed 13 resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act overturning Obama-era regulations, including the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order that required federal contractors to pay their workers a living wage and to obey workplace safety regulations.

Trump continues to assert the lie that there was mass voting fraud in 2016, setting the stage for more efforts to restrict voting, particularly for people of color and the young.

This list could go on — and, as Trump has said, 100 days is only the beginning.

We have big challenges in this country. We have to make this economy work for working people. We have to rescue the democracy from the corruptions of big money. We have to address catastrophic climate change before it is too late.

We have to stop fighting endless wars abroad and begin rebuilding at home. We have to make it easier, not harder, for people to register and vote. In each of these areas and more, Trump is headed the wrong way.

Yes, some of his efforts have failed, but he is already doing damage to the common good.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. was in town June 30, hosting a discussion on increasing diversity within tech companies. (Photo courtesy of Fifth Avenue Times)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is president and founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition.

The post Trump succeeds in systematic assault on civil rights appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

Donald Trump hosted a celebration in the White House Rose Garden for House Republicans after they passed their party’s health care plan by the thinnest of margins. They were celebrating what Trump called a “win,” without any thought about consequences.

None of them had read the bill, which was released only a couple of days before the vote and rushed to the floor. The vote took place before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could issue a revised assessment of its costs and effects.

House leaders and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney dismissed criticisms, saying that Senate Republicans planned to start all over anyway. This bill addresses one-sixth of our national economy, and an industry that has been a leading source of jobs growth.

Don’t worry, say House Republicans, we just had to get the win; forget about the substance.

Americans shouldn’t just be worried; they should be furious. The Republican bill will throw literally millions off health care, put people with pre-existing conditions at risk and raise premiums particularly for workers aged 50 to 64 — in order to give a massive tax break to the very wealthy.

At the annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire investor Warren Buffett called it for what it is: “a huge tax cut for guys like me.” The richest 400 people in America will get a tax break estimated at about $7 million a year.

To pay for that, millions will lose their coverage, and millions more — the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions in various states — will see premiums soar and insurance become unaffordable.

You can’t sugarcoat this. It’s not enough to say the Senate will fix it (the 13 white men — no women, no people of color — on the Republican Senate Working Group certainly will not). It’s not acceptable to say, “We don’t mean it; we just had to pass it.”

Why did they have to pass it? This is complicated, but if you follow it, you can understand the backroom plunder that is taking place.

As Peter Suderman explained in the New York Times, Republicans have to pass it because the top-end tax cuts in the health care bill are vital for their central goal: to deliver to their corporate and wealthy donors another massive tax cut in the next budget reconciliation vote. They have to do the tax cuts in what’s called “reconciliation” because that allows them, under the obscure rules of Congress, to pass the bill with only 50 votes — with only Republican votes.

But the reconciliation rules only allow tax cuts if they don’t raise deficits after a 10-year window. So to get what Trump calls the mother of all tax cuts, Republicans want to cut the taxes out of Obamacare in the fiscal year 2017 reconciliation (that only lasts until next September) and then have a lower baseline for cutting taxes in the fiscal year 2018 reconciliation (the budget that begins on Oct. 1). Tax cuts for the wealthy will be paid for by sickness and death by millions of the uninsured.

Republican Sen. John McCain criticizes the House for proceeding without a CBO estimate of the costs, saying, “I want to know how much it costs.” Republican senators vow not to act until the CBO reports.

The CBO’s estimate will show what we already know from its last estimate: Millions will lose their insurance and the wealthy will pocket millions in tax cuts.

A former insurance executive, Richard Eskow, did the real math. He took the best estimates of how many avoidable deaths come from not having health insurance with the rollback of Medicaid and taking away protections for pre-existing conditions. He compared that to the tax cuts that would be pocketed by the 400 richest Americans, people who, like Buffett, make on average over $300 million a year.

Here’s his estimate of the real cost: Ten people will die under the Republican bill to give each of the 400 richest people in America a tax break. For every person who dies, they’ll pocket about $787,151.

As Eskow noted, those rich beneficiaries aren’t likely to know anyone who will lose his or her life as a result of being stripped of health insurance. And while the $787,000 isn’t much for a multimillionaire, it’s just the appetizer for the big take they will get out of the Trump tax cut plan that will follow.

Thirteen white, rich men will now create the Republican plan in the Senate. They’ll decide how many millions to strip from health insurance to pay for tax cuts many of them will enjoy. They’ll decide whether to deprive low-wage women of Planned Parenthood’s health care services. They’ll decide just how many deaths are needed to cover the tax cuts for the very rich.

Ugly language? No this is a morally indefensible, ugly piece of work.

It is simply obscene to choose consciously to condemn low-wage workers or older workers to unnecessary illness and death in order to afford tax cuts for the already wealthy.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is president and founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition.

The post The Republican Health Care Plan: Death by tax cuts appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised that “we’re going to start winning again.”

In office, he has defined winning largely in military terms. His budget decimates the State Department while adding billions to the Pentagon.

He boasts that he’s delegated decisions on force levels abroad to the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Mike Mattis recently announced that 4,000 more troops would be sent to Afghanistan. Four thousand more troops won’t produce a “win” in Afghanistan.

The president has it wrong. America’s military is already the best in the world. But for America to “start winning,” we need more smart diplomacy, not more smart bombs.

Since coming into office Trump has ratcheted up the use of force. He dropped the “mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan, while adding troops there. He rained cruise missiles on an airbase in Syria, and a U.S. jet recently shot down a Syrian jet in Syrian airspace, a clear act of war.

He’s added troops to Iraq and to back rebels in Syria. He lavished arms and praise on the Saudis, backing up not only their merciless war on Yemen but also their blockade on tiny Qatar.

Not one of these actions will “start America winning.” The war in Afghanistan is in its 16th year. Even Secretary Mattis admits we have no strategy for victory there.

Four thousand more troops will add to the violence and the costs. They will help ensure we don’t lose, but the war will go on.

In Syria, Trump had suggested on the campaign trail that he would focus on defeating the Islamic State, not on regime change in Syria. That opened the possibility of a working coalition with Russia and Syria against the Islamic State. Instead we’re now clearly at war with Syria as well as the Islamic State.

In the Persian Gulf, we’re backing the Saudi destruction of Yemen, creating a failed state that will mint more terrorists. And bizarrely, Trump seems to have turned on Qatar, a tiny emirate that is an ally and the site of a vital American air base. The recent announcement that the U.S. will sell $12 billion in arms to Qatar makes our policy utterly incoherent.

In our own hemisphere, Trump has repeatedly acted to worsen relations rather than ease them. He’s insulted the Mexican president and alienated the Canadians, our closest trading partners.

When Venezuela descended into desperate hunger, the administration passed up the opportunity to offer humanitarian assistance and come to the aid of a neighbor in need. With the reversal of President Barack Obama’s opening to Cuba, Trump is isolating the U.S. from its neighbors.

In the State Department, offices on the top floors remain empty. Trump’s budget calls for a 30 percent cut in the department. At a time when the U.S. desperately needs creative diplomacy — a combination of the State Department’s professionals and skilled political appointees — Trump is demoralizing the department, chasing away professionals and scaring away the experts who might lead real change.

America is a great nation. Our economy is still one of the greatest in the world. Our military is unmatched. Our so-called “soft power” — in culture, language and commerce — is without rival.

Yet, we find ourselves unable to “start winning.” The military is mired in conflicts in the Middle East with no exit and no victory. Trump is alienating our neighbors, even when we should be strengthening our bonds.

Our allies are increasingly perturbed by the president’s erratic bluster. Voters may have thought that Trump the businessman would be a strong negotiator, as he promised.

Instead, he’s turned out to be a showman, infatuated with military gestures, scornful of the quiet arts of diplomacy. He isn’t putting America first; he’s putting America at risk.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is president and founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition.

The post Trump’s foreign policy is putting America at risk appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump once promised that he would be “so presidential that it will be boring.” If only.

Instead, he has managed to irk even his Republican allies by wallowing in the muck of name-calling, yet again, belittling a woman for her looks. “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski, Trump tweeted, was still “bleeding from her facelift” when he saw her during the New Year’s holiday.

He also disparaged Brzezinski’s intelligence and poked fun at her co-host Joe Scarborough. Dozens of Republicans, including leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan, have scolded the president on his language in the June 29 tweets. Some have used terms like “civility” and “decency” to distance themselves from his comments.

It is easy to scold the president on the indecent ways he speaks to, and of, women. It is easy to shake one’s head at his juvenile tweets.

Certainly, our president has the temperament of an unruly 8 year old (and that is unkind to 8 year olds). But we can spend so much time wondering about this president’s temperament that we can forget about his abhorrent policy initiatives that are far more dangerous than his mindless tweets.

At the same time that Trump is attacking cable news hosts, the Senate is supposed to be considering a health care plan that “repeals” the Affordable Care Act. There is no civility or decency in advocating for a health care plan that would leave more than 22 million people uninsured.

There is nothing civil or decent in the president suggesting that Obamacare be repealed, even if there is no replacement for it. So while many hours of television time will be spent excoriating Trump for his silly tweets about the “Morning Joe” team, far more should be spent dealing with health care, job creation and prison reform.

All eyes are on the president and his poison pen. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.

We should be equally concerned about other policy actions that are happening even as Trump is clowning on the public stage. He wakes up in the morning to send out mindless tweets, but his minions, who are neither tweeting nor clowning, are working to roll back our civil and voting rights.

Are decent Republicans an endangered species? Certainly, some Republicans will step up when Trump crosses the line on civility with his unhinged tweets.

Too many others, though, are silent, not only in the face of misogynistic tweets, but also in the face of inhumane public policy. Because they have placed partisanship over common humanity, they have been silent in the face of draconian public policy, especially around health care.

Those who have stood up, such as Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, have attracted the ire of the big-money alt-Trump regime, those deep-pocketed political action committee funders who have attempted to bully Heller into supporting Trumpcare.

Indeed, those Republicans who have bucked the Trump machine have found themselves unfairly attacked. Attacks on Republicans like Heller are ways to intimidate others into silence.

While Trump is tweeting insanity, immigrants who are honorably discharged veterans are being deported. They joined the armed services and served our country, both because they are patriots, but also because they were promised citizenship in return for their service. Is there no decency?

While Trump is doing his best imitation of a schoolyard bully, school administrators from both red and blue states are looking at the ways Trumpcare would affect poor children and pushing back on the horrible legislation. Both Democratic and Republican governors are appalled at the ways Medicaid cuts will hurt their constituents, but Trump is too busy tweeting on posturing to deal with his natural allies in the states.

Trump’s tweets are simply the tip of the iceberg. They illustrate a lack of decency that is worse than the incivility of name-calling. The indecency and incivility in this administration is as much about flawed and inhumane public policy as juvenile name-calling.

In criticizing Trump’s decency, let’s keep our eyes on the prize. Our president is not just a clueless buffoon; he is a dangerous and clueless buffoon. We should focus on the danger more than the cluelessness.

Julianne Malveaux is an economist, author, and founder of Economic Education. Her latest book, “Are We Better Off: Race, Obama and Public Policy,” is available via amazon.com.

The post Trump: a dangerous and clueless buffoon appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

The only time I can remember time moving as slowly as it has during the past six months was when I was 8 and had to wait an entire year between Christmases.

True or not, it feels like the Trump administration has slowed the progress of time and assigned each day an additional 36 hours. One wonders how long it will take to lumber through his term in office.

I surmise that my lack of restful sleeping and similar reports from others, has something to do with the current occupant of the Oval Office. It’s my opinion, but shared by many, that the discord and anxiety in our current socio-political structure directly relates to the incompetence of that occupant.

We’re plagued with the question, “What are the long-term consequences to the nation because of this mistake in the White House?”

When at my limit, I retreat to the security of my memories. My only solace is the memories of the eight years of leadership by President Barack Obama and the Obama family. I, like unnumbered others, miss the Obamas and nostalgically wonder where their judgment and demeanor have gone. Most of us recognize that our national leadership is in drastic need of an injection of the Obama character.

When the Obamas left us, they both expressed the need for much needed sleep and spending “quality time” with family. They also said that they wanted to do “some normal stuff.”

I doubt that anything they do will be considered “normal,” but God bless them with the peace and tranquility to regain a measure of normalcy.

Many are sad that the Obamas had to leave us, but we’re realists and understand the political game. What we can’t reconcile is waking each morning with the ominous questions, “What did he do last night? What crisis of his making will we have to face today?”

Those questions are a far cry from the surety that most of us had upon waking in the Obama era.

We became used to the phrase “No drama Obama!” Whether spoken with positive or negative intent, we were comforted by understanding that, whatever the crisis, President Obama was versed on the subject and would take a thoughtful and measured approach to its resolution.

The last thing to be expected from President Obama was a knee-jerk reaction to any event. We were comfortable with the “nuclear football” in his possession.

More often than not, on networks other than Fox, we hear opinions alleging Donald Trump’s emotional instability. We’re deluged with reports of his rants in the White House and are audience to his “disturbed” tweets against adversaries — both real and imagined.

Rather than comfort, we’re in denial about who now controls that “football.”

In the past few months, the Obamas have traveled to the British Virgin Islands, French Polynesia and Italy, among other destinations. The world is still consumed with interest in their activities; yet, they remain connected to the imperatives of the nation.

With a successor who is hell bent on destroying his legacy, President Obama has spoken out in the interests of common citizens and the consequences of an ill-conceived health plan — Trumpcare.

To the joy of many, Michelle Obama delivered a recorded tribute to Chance the Rapper on the occasion of his receiving the 2017 BET Humanitarian Award. Those acts exemplify the “state of normal” concern for the Obamas.

I was blessed to visit the White House many times while they were there, but I have no desire to return. I’ve had an invitation, but I turned it down to preserve the memory of a White House as positive as it was when the Obamas lived there. No future visit to the White House could ever match the Obama years there.

Faye Williams is president of the National Congress of Black Women.

The post Missing and reflecting on the Obama years appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

LOS ANGELES — City Council President Herb Wesson outlined his legislative priorities July 25, which include creating a municipal bank that could serve the marijuana industry.

Wesson’s speech to the full City Council followed the panel’s first meeting since re-elected council members were sworn in for their new terms along with Monica Rodriguez, who was elected in May to represent District 7, on July 1.

A municipal bank could be used to help finance entrepreneurs in the city and also to allow owners of marijuana shops to be customers, Wesson said.

“We cannot bury our heads in the sand on the issue of recreational and medical cannabis legalization,” Wesson said. “Instead we must strive to reasonably regulate the emerging industry while creating opportunities for Angelenos,” Wesson said.

Cannabis, which has been legal for medical purposes for more than two decades in California, will become legal for recreational use in 2018.

Owners of cannabis shops often have trouble finding banks that will do business with them because the drug remains illegal at the federal level.

Legalized cannabis could bring the city up to $100 million in new tax revenues per year, according to a motion passed by the council in January that sought to find ways for the city to collect cannabis taxes.

Wesson said he has directed the necessary city departments to explore the creation of a municipal bank and that the proceeds could be leveraged to build more affordable housing citywide.

Councilman Paul Krekorian expressed his support for the idea.

“This is a great opportunity to invest in our infrastructure and support small local businesses,” said Krekorian, who chairs the Ad Hoc Jobs Creation Committee which would be tasked with developing the bank. “I’m ready to get the Jobs Committee to work on creating a municipal bank that will serve the people of Los Angeles and keep our money right here in the city.”

Wesson thanked his colleagues for re-electing him to another two-year term as council president on July 1. He was first elected to the City Council in 2005 and has served as council president since 2011.

The council needs to continue to work on civil rights issues through its new Ad Hoc on Immigrant Affairs and Civil Rights Committee, Wesson said. The committee was created last year, after Donald Trump was elected president with promises to increase deportations of immigrants in the country illegally.

The committee has passed numerous motions opposing Trump’s immigration policies.

Wesson recounted how he, as a 12-year-old black boy in a Cleveland movie theater, was accosted by two white men who threw a milk shake at him and called him “every name imaginable, telling me to go back to Africa and using the n-word, the n-word, the n-word. Members, I cannot tell you how it felt to be a 12-year-old boy and to recognize that the very sight of you would repulse someone like that.”

Fifty years later, such encounters still happen, he said. Wesson noted that NBA star LeBron James’ home in Los Angeles was recently vandalized with a racial slur and cited other acts of recent racial violence, including a report that hate crimes are on the rise in California, to illustrate how race relations still have a long way to go in America.

Wesson praised the diversity of the council — which includes three blacks, two Latinos, two Latinas, two openly gay members, an Armenian and the council’s second Asian American.

“Bad people are born into every generation. Many people spent many years and many sacrifices to create an environment that would elect a council that looks like us. … We cannot stand by to allow bad people to roll back the progress that we have made not just in this city but in this country,” Wesson said.

As part of an effort to fight discrimination, Wesson said he was calling on the expansion of the embRACE LA program, which seeks to create an open dialogue on race relations, in partnership with Community Coalition, a local nonprofit.

Wesson also said he was going to appoint an independent commission, in partnership with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, to advise the council on affordable housing issues.

Other top priorities, he said, are enacting recommendations for comprehensive civil rights legislation from the city’s recently hired immigrant advocate and continuing to improve internet access for low-income residents and students through the OurCycle L.A. program, which refurbishes old computers and donates them to qualified participants.

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The latest political circus is indeed the “Greatest Show on Earth.”

Come one, come all! See the trained elephants, dancing, marching in perfect order, and balancing on relatively tiny stools, staying there until the ringmaster directs them to step down.

There are monkeys doing all sorts of tricks, raging tigers that are made docile the moment the ringmaster puts his hand up. The fiercest among all the animals is one by the name of “Scary Moochie,” a roaring lion, always ready to tear someone’s head off.

But even he has been tamed to slither off into a corner when ordered. What a circus!

The magician is amazing! Her name is Sarah “Huckster” Sanders; she makes facts disappear quicker than the eye can discern. Her talents are unlimited as she takes what the ringmaster says and turns it into something completely different, all the while saying she is “always honest” which, if that is true, means the ringmaster is lying.

She performs exclusively in a small standing-room-only tent filled with reporters whom she treats like third-graders. She can tell them anything in answer to their questions, ignore them as she pleases, threaten them, and disappear in a heartbeat by abruptly walking out of the room, always leaving them wanting more. They never applaud for her performance, though.

Then there are the cabinet clowns; they are so funny. They convened under the big top and made the entire world laugh by taking their individual turns to praise, laud, glorify and thank the ringmaster for “blessing” them with the privilege and honor of being in his circus. Now that was really funny, strange but funny.

The trained dogs are especially hilarious. They jump through flaming hoops, run around in circles, jump on the back of the dog in front and bark on command.

They can push large heavy balls uphill on a narrow plank, and stand on their hind legs to beg the ringmaster for a treat. There is Spicer, the Toy Poodle Lap Dog, Priebus, the “blessed” Chihuahua, Conway, the “alternative fact” Pit Bull, and Pence, the Christian Bull Dog, who refuses to allow his professed morality stop him from salivating in response to his real “master,” Trump, otherwise known as Pavlov.

The dancing bears, Don Jr., Eric and the Kushners, are so cute and lovable, but upon closer observation, the audience can see their ferocity, avarice and their treacherous willingness to attack anyone on behalf of their “Trump-pet master.”

Nothing is out of bounds for them; nothing is off the table. If they see something they want, they take it, either by portraying their cuddly side or by activating their ferocious side.

The tightrope walkers and trapeze acts, comprising sycophants who just want to be in the camera shot, even if it means falling, perform without safety nets; the trained seals do their balancing acts as well.

They will lie, cheat and distort reality right before our eyes; the main culprit in that group is Corey “I have no clients whatsoever [in Ohio]” Lewandowski.

It is a full-blown, three-ring circus, folks, whose purpose is to keep us amused and diverted from the important issues of our time.

The Trump circus characters have mad skills. Instead of a fire-eater there is a fire-breather named Stephen Miller. There are two court jesters to defend the ringmaster on CNN: Jeffery Lord, who has a Ronald Reagan séance each time he is on TV, and “Smiling Jack” Kingston, the former congressman who cracks himself up trying to defend the indefensible.

There are several strong men the ringmaster calls “My Generals,” an organ grinder and a dancing monkey named Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, a Trump-hater turned Trump-lover, named Nimrata “Nikki” Haley, who performs before the entire world, and there’s chief of security, Wayne LaPierre, just in case anyone in the audience gets too close to the performers.

The ringmaster, Donald Trump, is the Jim Henson of politics. Henson had his Muppets; Trump has his Trump-pets.

He orchestrates his political circus with the aplomb of a master showman, reaching even into the hinterlands to entertain his Trump-pets in the remote corners of this nation. There are shows on a daily basis, and there is no admission fee.

Now let me give my disclaimer. I don’t have love for either political party, so please don’t think this is dump on Trump article. I’d write the same thing if Obama had carried on this way.

Besides, I love a good circus every now and then. But I say black people should follow the example of the UniverSoul Circus and establish our own political party and thus our own circus featuring our own performers. What say you?

Meanwhile, watch my seat; I’m going to get some more cotton candy.

James Clingman is one of the nation’s most prolific writers on economic empowerment for black people. His latest book, “Black Dollars Matter! Teach Your Dollars How to Make More Sense,” is available on his website, Blackonomics.com.

The post Under the big top with the Trump circus appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

Campaigning for the presidency, Donald Trump argued that blacks and other people of color should vote for him. Given their current conditions, he argued, “What the hell do you have to lose?”

Since winning election, however, Trump seems intent on proving over and over again just how much African-Americans and other minorities have to lose.

Under Trump’s attorney general, former Alabama Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, the Justice Department has been turned into a Department of Injustice. Sessions, once rejected by a Republican-majority Senate for racially biased actions and statements when nominated to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, has set about implanting Dixiecrat justice on the nation’s minorities.

He has directed federal prosecutors to seek the harshest sentences possible for nonviolent drug offenses, ensuring the continued incarceration of a disproportionate number of African Americans. The Justice Department has retreated from what was an emerging bipartisan consensus on sensible police reform.

It has changed positions to support state laws that suppress minority voting rights. It has extended the federal government’s power to seize the property of innocent Americans.

Now, as reported in the New York Times, the department is seeking political attorneys to investigate and sue universities “over affirmative action policies that are deemed to discriminate against white applicants.” The assault on affirmative action is classic dog whistle racial politics.

In fact, as former University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger has shown, affirmative action has helped to expand opportunity. Campuses across the country have become more representative of the American people.

This has not only helped counter centuries of discrimination; it also allows students to learn with and from people of different backgrounds. This helps prepare the future leaders and citizens of the country.

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that a diverse student body is an educational benefit and a boon to the country that justifies affirmative action.

Those who oppose it often assume that university admissions are based upon one objective scale: grade point and standardized test results. That is, in a word, nonsense.

University admissions offices labor intensely to create a diverse body of students capable of doing the work necessary to succeed. Grades and standardized tests count, as does the quality of prior educational experience. So does the luck of having an alum as a parent or wealthy relations who can add to the university endowment, or special athletic or musical or dramatic skills, coming from underrepresented rural communities or from abroad, and more.

Some of those categories — say having parents who are alumni or are wealthy — discriminate disproportionately against people of color, since African-Americans were forbidden to build fortunes under slavery and were often excluded from college admissions until the civil rights movement’s reforms. Affirmative action helps to level the playing field.

Another lie propagated by its opponents is that affirmative action policies make it significantly harder for white students to get into selective colleges. In fact, as Derek Bok, former Harvard president, and William Bowen, former president of Princeton, reported, if selective universities had a completely race-blind admissions policy, the probability of being admitted for a white student would rise from 25 percent to 26.2 percent.

A final myth is that race no longer matters. The right-wing gang of five justices in the Supreme Court argued this in gutting provisions of the Voting Rights Act. States across the country then proved them wrong by enacting new voting restrictions — a revival of Jim Crow voter suppression schemes — that were designed to make it harder for African-Americans and students to vote.

America is more segregated than it was at the time of the civil rights movement. Our public schools are too often separate and unequal. Race still matters in this country, big-time.

What do we have to lose with Trump? Equal opportunity, voting rights, police reform, sentencing reform, university admission. People of color are learning that when Trump trumpets America First, he doesn’t include them in his America.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is president and founder of the Rainbow Push Coalition.

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