Tuesday, July 28, 2015

THE CASH STUFF FOR 7-30-15

NNPA STORIES -
http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/wrongful-death-what-happened-to-sandra-bland/?_sf_s=lead+story

http://nnpa.org/nnpa_newswire/president-obama-spends-day-in-federal-prison-houston-leaders-bring-attention-to-texas/?_sf_s=lead+story



CASH IN THE APPLE FOR 7-3-15
By Cash Michaels

POWERFUL COVER – The latest cover of New York Magazine with 35 of the over 40 female accusers of Bill Cosby featured, is powerful, indeed. It is not hard to believe their accusations, for during the time that Bill Cosby was at his zenith as a comedian and national television icon, the entertainment industry was awash in drug and sex parties, where the perversions flowed like water, and women were seen as ripe for the pickings.
True, it is still hard for many of us to see Bill “Cliff Huxable” Cosby as anything other than “America’s favorite Dad” from “The Cosby Show.” The man who built his career on the concept of family and being a loving husband, laughed all the way to the bank to the point that to even say his name meant you were referring to someone many considered to be in a class by himself.
But now we know, by his own words, that Cosby was lying about what his true values were.
And everyone, including the Disney Theme Park, to Spelman College this week telling Cos to keep his $20 million endowment, wants nothing to do with this man.
There’s no need to go into the specific allegations here, but suffice it to say that this should be a dramatic lesson for everyone. What goes around comes around. What you do in the dark will one day see the light. Bill Cosby is only now, after so many years, paying for his sins.
It is a shame to see this happen.
SANDRA BLAND – It is a perplexing case, what happened to 28-year-old Sandra Bland. A Texas police officer stops her for not signaling while changing lanes, brutally arrests her and takes her to jail, where she dies three days later.
Thus far the official local investigation confirms what the local police say, that the young black woman committed suicide, but no one believes that.
What’s more puzzling is the police chief there saying that Bland told her jailers that she’s tried to commit suicide before. If that is true, then automatically that means police were under every obligation to place her on suicide watch to ensure that she didn’t hurt herself.
Apparently that didn’t happen.
We can only hope that a federal investigation clears the air on the Sandra Bland case. Black lives do matter, especially young ones like hers.
NEW SEXY BOSS ON “SLEEPY HOLLOW” – When the Fox television series “Sleepy Hollow” returns for its third season Oct. 1st, lead character Lt. Abbie Mills will have a new boss, FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel Reynolds, portrayed by actor Lance Gross. As many of you know, Lt. Mills ‘ previous boss, Captain Frank Irving, has now been written out of the show. Gross, who recently starred in Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, last year portrayed a Secret Service agent in the short-lived NBC series “Crisis,” so we know he has the chops for this role. He also is a great looking guy, so hopefully there will be some sexual tension between him and Abbie, who is portrayed by the beautiful Nicole Beharie. We’ll see how it all shakes out when “Sleepy Hollow” returns to Fox  in October.
ICE T IS GOING TO BE A DAD AGAIN – Rapper/actor Ice T, one of the veteran stars of the long-running police drama “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” has announced that at age 57, he’s going to be a father again. For him and his wife, Coco, 36, this will be their first child together, though Ice has two adult children from previous marriages. We will them well.
BOBBI KRISTINA IS GONE – What more can be said about such a sad, sad life as lived by Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of superstar parents Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. She grew up around drugs and domestic violence. She saw how drugs literally destroyed her mother, causing her death in February 2012. Her father has had numerous problems with the law. So the young lady hasn’t had the best role models surrounding her. And now, at the tender young age of 22, the child dies after falling into a six-month coma after her body was found floating face down in a tub, just like her mother died.
There can be no question that Bobbi Kristina came from a dysfunctional family, and despite gallant efforts by her loving grandmother, Cissy Houston, the young woman was intent on following the footsteps of her mother, somehow becoming a star even though she didn’t possess even a ounce of her mom’s talent.
But the turmoil is over, and Bobbi Kristina is at peace now. It must have been a sad reunion, indeed when her spirit reunited with that of her mother’s.
Bobbi Kristina Brown will always be remembered in sorrow, We don’t know what she would have been because she didn’t know. A young life wasted, cursed from the very beginning.
MSNBC CHANGES – Well, looks like my favorite news and talk channel is in for another serious change. MSNBC has been dragging something serious in the ratings over the past year and change, which means something has to be done to attract more eyeballs to the party. Fox News is soundly kicking everybody’s behind in the ratings department, and CNN is in distant second place, though still doing better than MSNBC, which is losing viewers faster than Donald Trump loses combs.
Published reports say MSNBC’s The Ed Show at 5 p.m. will be replaced with a political show hosted by Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd. But the changes won’t stop there.
The 8 p.m. hour has been a ratings failure with All In with Chris Hayes, while 9 p.m.’s Rachel Maddow Show is holding its own against Fox’s The Kelly File. There are also questions about PoliticsNation at 6p.m. with the Rev. Al Sharpton. Some folks see Rev. as a liability and have been trying to get him gone for the longest.
The most tantalizing rumor has been that now that he’s left ESPN (last Friday was his last show), Keith Olbermann might bury the hatchet, similar to what he did to get back with ESPN two years ago, and return to MSNBC  and the 8 p.m. weeknight time slot he used to occupy with his hit “Countdown” show. Keith was beyond funny, and beyond controversial when he helmed the program to the point where management couldn’t stand him, and he openly couldn’t stomach management. But now they need each other.
MSNBC needs another star beyond Rachel Maddow (whom Keith discovered and had put on the air before he left) to at least take back second place from CNN. So the question remains…does MSNBC want the ratings that a controversial Keith Olbermann can bring to the party, knowing that he can explode any moment, or do they have someone else they can bring onboard to become competitive again?
I know of no one like that but Keith. Let’s see what happens.
Make sure you tune in every Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. for my talk radio show, ''Make It Happen'' on Power 750 WAUG-AM, or online at www.waug-network.com. And read more about my thoughts and opinions exclusively at my blog, ‘The Cash Roc” (http://thecashroc.blogspot.com/2011/01/cash-roc-begins.html).
           Cash in the Apple - honored as the Best Column Writing of 2006 by the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Columnist Cash Michaels was also honored by the NNPA for Best Feature Story Journalist of 2009, and was the recipient of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP’s President’s Award for Media Excellence in Sept. 2011.
          Until next week, keep a smile on your face, GOD in your heart, and The Carolinian in your life. Bye, bye.

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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 7-30-15

FIVE NORTH CAROLINA HBCUs RANK IN TOP 25
            [DURHAM] Of the top 25 historically black universities and colleges across the country, North Carolina proudly boasts of  five of them, according to the 2015 Rankings of the Best HBCUs national survey published by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. With Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Ala. logging in at the number one HBCU in the nation, closely behind was  Winston-Salem State University at #5, Elizabeth City State University at #8, NC Central University at #9, NC A&T University at #15 and Fayetteville State University bookended the list at #25.  The schools were ranked according to academic reputation, average financial aid, average net price (tuition) and average starting salary.

NCDOT SEC. TONY TATA RESIGNS AMID CONTROVERSY
            [RALEIGH] NC Dept. of  Transportation Secretary Tony Tata abruptly resigned from Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration Tuesday, saying that he needed more time for his family and his book career. The resignation was effective immediately. Tata’s two and a half years in office, just like his failed tenure as Wake County Public Schools superintendent, weren’t without controversy.  The Republican and one-time “Sarah Palin for president” supporter involved himself in numerous partisan events, bashing Democrats on many occasions. During the height of the snowstorms which crippled roads across the state, Tata was in Chicago on a book tour. And he appeared on Fox News recently as a political commentator and author without identifying himself per his official position.  There are rumors that Tata is preparing himself for a run for Congress. He says all options are on the table.

GREENSBORO TO GET $3.5 MILLION IN HUD GRANT MONEY
            [GREENSBORO] Thanks to a grant from the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the city of Greensboro is slated to receive over $3.5 million to assist those needing affordable housing, according to the office of Congresswoman Alma Adams. The grant money comes from four special HUD programs. “Having access to quality and affordable housing is critical for our communities,” said Congresswoman Adams. “This HUD funding for Greensboro will help tackle homelessness and help enhance the quality of life for so many in need.”
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TRIANGLE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 7-30-15

IS WAL-MART OPENING A NEIGHBORHOOD GROCERY STORE IN SE RALEIGH?
            Published reports say a developer has unveiled plans for a proposed shopping center  at the intersection of Poole and New Hope roads that may feature a national anchor grocery store.  Richard Brown, a representative for the developer, Kimley Horn, could not identify what the anchor grocer would be, but there’s speculation that it could be a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, a scaled own version of the super stores’ grocery section. The project is scheduled to go before the city planning commission sometime in August, and if approved, construction would commence in 2016.

UNC-CHAPEL HILL STUDENT CHARGED WIH MURDER IN TRAFFIC TRAGEDY
            Police have charged UNC – Chapel Hill student Chandler Michael Kania, 20, has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder, three counts of felony death by motor vehicle, one count of felony serious injury by motor vehicle, driving the wrong way on an interstate, careless and reckless driving after consuming alcohol as a minor, possession of alcohol by a minor and having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle, in the July 19th deaths of two mothers and a six-year-old grandchild when he crashed his Jeep going the wrong way  on I-85 south. Kania allegedly used a fake ID to drink at two Chapel Hill bars, and fought off friends who tried to prevent him from driving while drunk. A nine-year-old child riding with the victims was seriously injured, but has been released from UNC Hospitals. At press time, Kania has bailed out of jail pending his next court date.

BISHOP CURRY READY TO LEAD AS NATIONAL EPISCOPALIAN HEAD
            The head of the North Carolina Episcopal Church says he is ready to lead all Episcopalians now after being elected in June to become the national Bishop. Bishop Michael Curry has presided over the North Carolina Diocese for several years, but it was his historic election to national leadership in Salt Lake City several weeks ago that has placed him in the history books as the first African-American to reach that pinnacle in the Episcopal Church. Bishop Curry says he believes strongly in the involvement of the church in the community. Curry will be moving from Raleigh to Manhattan, is expected to be installed in November.
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CONTROVERSIAL TWEET BY BLACK NC REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN HASAN HARNETT


BLACK NC GOP CHAIR
PLAYS “KKK” CARD
By Cash Michaels
editor
            It hasn’t taken Hasan Harnett, the first African-American elected as chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party last June, long to endear himself to rank-and-file GOP’ers across the state, if not the country.
            Shortly after taking office, Harnett went to Winston-Salem as the federal voting rights trial was beginning, to publicly accuse NCNAACP President Rev. William Barber of taking money from out-of-state unions to lead the Moral Monday movement, and that those unions were paying demonstrators to take part in the Moral Monday demonstrations because “They want to make it easier to cheat in our elections. They are being paid by unions to fight Voter ID in North Carolina.”
            After a check of the documented record, the press quickly determined Harnett’s claims to be baseless at best.
            NC GOP Chair Hasan Harnett and spokesman Ricky Diaz “both made statements that aren’t fully backed by the evidence at hand,” wrote Democratic commentator Thomas Mills on his “Politics North Carolina” blogsite shortly after. “In other words, they lied.”
But that didn’t matter. The black NCGOP chair’s job was to tarnish the Moral Monday movement as the NCNAACP challenged the Republican-passed 2013 voter restriction laws in court as unconstitutional.
            Last week, however, gave rise to a Harnett tactic that was even more daring than the first – linking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to the Ku Klux Klan.
            On Twitter last week, Harnett tweeted “Say NO to the #Democrat Lies #Liberal Agenda. #BlackLivesMatter #KeepGodFirst.”
            Underneath, Harnett displayed two pictures – one of a Ku Klux Klan meeting with a burning cross, and then right next to it, a picture of a “winking” Hillary Clinton. Underneath the Klan picture is the sentence, “The KKK was created as the militant wing of the Democrat Party in order to fight Republican reconstruction.”
            The Harnett tweet apparent got the effect it wanted, being reported on by The Associated Press, ABC News and the New York Times, among other news outlets.
            When Raleigh television station WRAL-TV requested comment from Harnett earlier this week, he reportedly declined. Instead the NCGOP’s Executive Director Todd Poole told the station, “The chairman isn't going to comment or give interviews on tweets, but as the first black chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, he believes we have to learn from history and move past it."
            NC Democratic Party spokesman Ford Porter didn’t see the black NCGOP chairman’s controversial tweet the same way.
"At a moment when Governor McCrory and leading Republicans are fighting in court to enact new restrictions to the ballot box here in North Carolina, Chairman Harnett’s comments are particularly ludicrous” Porter said in a statement to The Carolinian Newspaper. “North Carolina has long struggled to overcome racial division – and for at least the last 50 years, that work has been led by the Democratic Party. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the facts of history.”
            Porter continued, “ Unfortunately, Chairman Harnett's troubling comments pretty much encapsulate the current Republican brand in North Carolina: inflammatory rhetoric, completely unhinged, and totally focused on nonsense instead of job creation or improving our schools. It's telling that Governor McCrory and senior Republicans have not publicly distanced themselves from their Chairman’s comments and no great wonder why everyday families are ready for a change in Raleigh."
            On Facebook, black Democrats were not pleased with what they saw was a weak but apparent attempt to paint their party, let alone a prominent candidate to succeed Pres. Barack Obama, with an undeserved racial brush.
            “Another dumb a—, “ remarked a poster named Ingrid, “…and I wonder how much he sold his soul for,” referring to NCGOP Chair Harnett.
            “Yes in [the] period of Reconstruction…a lot of Klan members were Democrats…mostly in the South,” another Facebook poster named Odessa wrote. “After the civil rights bill was past…those Democrats…Jesse Helms…Strom Thurmond…and George Wallace and the like…became Republicans…”
            Another Facebook poster named Greg saw the situation pragmatically.
            “The only way of solving all of this buffoonery is to get out and outvote [Republicans] instead of letting them outvote us.”
            Dan Blue III, former chairman of the Wake County Democratic Party, says the black NCGOP chairman’s pre-election year strategy is both sad, and transparent.          
“This is a political strategy of attacking your opponents strength,” Blue told The Carolinian. “NCGOP believes it can weaken the strong support in the African American electorate for the Democratic Party in general and Hillary Clinton in particular by linking them to the KKK.”
 “It is a difficult argument to make given the actions of the GOP at all levels, whether represented by the unhinged hatred for the President and his family, the antics of the GOP presidential hopefuls, the election reform legislation passed in the North Carolina General Assembly or the defense of the Confederate flag and monuments,” Blue added.
 “[Chairman Harnett’s] rhetoric is inconsistent with his party's actions.”
If recent history is a guide, Blue has a point.
Unlike former Secretary of State Clinton, several Republican and conservative Tea Party members and elected officials in recent years have been found to have ties to white supremacist organizations.
According to the Jewish Anti-Defamation League in a May 2009 report right after President Obama’s first election, “An anti-Semite and white supremacist created the Tea Party Americans Coalition (TPAC) as “a working group for serious White racialist activists in the US who want to effectively coordinate our efforts and intervene for effect in Tea Party-type events.”
Just last December, Washington was rocked by news that incoming House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R- LA) had spoken before the European – American Unity Rights Organization, a white supremacist group in 2002 spearheaded by KKK leader David Duke. Scalise says he never “affiliated” with the group, and was only trying to build support for his policy agenda. Duke called him  “a sellout” who he might run against.
In Sept. 2012, during the Republican National Committee Convention in Tampa, Fla., South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, currently one of sixteen candidates running for president, remarked on how the Republican Party was failing miserably to attract more blacks and Latinos to its ranks, saying, “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”
It was at that same convention where two convention attendees threw peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman, telling her, “This is how we feed animals.”
Only two percent of the attendees to that Republican National Convention were black.
And recently, in the aftermath of the Charleston Church massacre where a young white supremacist murdered nine black churchgoers in an effort to start a race war, it was learned that the Council of Conservative Citizens – the white supremacist group the suspect read and followed closely online, had contributed to the campaigns of three prominent Republicans – Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and former Sen. Rick Santorum. All three immediately returned the contributions.
Indeed, virtually all of the elected officials in and outside of South Carolina protesting the removal of the Confederate Battle flag – the 1960’s symbol of white resistance to racial desegregation in the South – were all Republicans.
Whether it was North Carolina conservative firebrand Sen. Jesse Helms, South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, or Sen. Trent Lott, who years ago was forced to step down after praising the racial politics of Sen. Thurmond, the Republican Party has had strong ties with the white supremacist movement, historians agree.
That doesn’t mean that the Democratic Party was not once white supremacist led, as the Wilmington, NC 1898 race massacre would attest to. And indeed, racially controversial figures like Helms and Thurmond were popular segregationist Democrats before they led the white male exodus to the Republican Party during the late 1960’s after Pres. Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“The Klan’s push for white voters to focus on voting against policies that would help Blacks encouraged many of the voters to toss their political affiliations aside and gravitate towards politicians who were opposed to desegregation and anything else that would treat Black people as equals,” wrote reporter Taylor Gordon in the December 2014 edition of the Atlanta Blackstar in a story titled, “Study: The Ku Klux Klan Played a Serious Role in Garnering White Southern Support for the Republican Party.”
But ever since then, historians confirm, the Democratic Party has led on civil rights, voting rights and other issues of equality, compared to its GOP counterpart, ultimately electing the first African-American president of the United States in 2009.
            Saying that the Democratic Party today, and Sec. Clinton in particular, subscribe to the racial politics of the Ku Klux Klan, is beyond reality, Casey Mann, former NC Democratic Party executive director says.
“The actions of the NCGOP Chair are shameful,” Mann told The Carolinian. [NCGOP Chairman] Hasan Harnett is playing 3-card Monty with the political process, trying to confuse people about where the parties stand on the issues of today. His is a game of labels; it has nothing to do with values. The real issues are where the NCGOP stands on voting rights, issues of equality, and confronting the disparities in economics and social justice that exist in North Carolina today.”

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