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A year ago, the headline of the report on hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center read “Hate Groups on the Rise.” This year’s report concludes that hate groups have risen for the second year in a row. The rise in the number of hate groups in the U.S. corresponds with the radical right getting emboldened by the candidacy of Donald Trump, according to the SPLC’s annual census of hate groups and other extremist organizations.
If Trump really wants to speak for forgotten Americans, he would travel to the Mississippi Delta and the rural Black Belt of the American South, where conditions are so wretched and dire that even a struggling Rust Belt factory town might seem like a bountiful paradise of opportunity and wealth. Campaign events tell the real story of who’s forgotten and who isn’t, and the verdict is clear: White working-class voters in the Rust Belt are far from forgotten.
Earlier this month, the Natalie M. LaPrade Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission awarded stage-one license preapprovals to 15 growers and 15 processors. None of the companies on tap for what are likely to be lucrative growing licenses is led by African Americans. “I think small guys were definitely not welcome to this game,” says Zulu, who says his primary reason for selling marijuana is to help senior citizens like his mother and others find relief from the pain of arthritis, eczema and other ailments.
When GOP presidential contender Donald Trump shouts that he’s the “law-and-order candidate,” he is pilfering the line that George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton worked to death during their White House bids. The law-and-order line is heavy with racially coded images of rampant black crime, and this is a surefire way to pander to fearful suburban whites.
Ceja had stumbled into the noxious muck of systemic discrimination in the rapidly growing temp industry. Around the country, temp agencies have used code words, symbols and gestures to illegally hire workers by sex, race and age. Whether filling orders for only white workers or only Latino ones, the tactics often hit black workers the hardest. As Ceja underwent a crash course in this hidden system, an advocacy group called the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative was devising a counteroffensive.
The deal, which was signed in May and disclosed Tuesday, includes the assumption of JPC’s debt. It also continues the dismantling of Johnson Publishing Co., an iconic black-owned business founded in 1942 by brilliant entrepreneur John H. Johnson with the publication of “Negro Digest.” Mr. Johnson died in 2005. Even the name Johnson Publishing Co. may eventually disappear.
“Voter ID laws disadvantaging older persons place a burden on the voting rights of those most likely to participate in the electoral process,” said Daniel Kohrman, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation office in Washington, D.C. That’s because older citizens vote at greater percentages than younger people. A total of 33 states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls this year. (West Virginia's new law goes into effect in 2018).
So let's tell the truth. The truth is that the Clinton crime bill was a strategic answer from the Democratic Party to the charge that it was "soft on crime," a charge that had dogged the party since Lee Atwater's famous Willie Horton ad that crushed the presidential campaign of Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. The crime bill was passed by a Democratic-controlled House run by Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) and a Democratic-controlled Senate run by Majority Leader George Mitchell. The Newt Gingrich Republican takeover didn't start until 1995.