Man Charged in Shooting Death of Motorist Seeking Help by Frederick H. Lowe

Nov. 18, 2013

Man Charged in Shooting Death of Motorist Seeking Help
It is the second deadly shooting of a black motorist seeking help since September
By Frederick H. Lowe

renishamcbride
A Dearborn Heights, Mich., man has been
charged in the murder of Renisha McBride.
She was seeking help following an automobile
accident.

Jonathan Ferrell also was shot to death while seeking help after an automobile accident.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Wayne County, Mich., prosecutor Kym Worthy today charged Theodore Paul Wafer with second-degree murder in the death of Renisha McBride, a 19 year-old Detroit woman, who sought help following an automobile accident in Dearborn Heights, Mich.

Worthy also charged the 54 year-old Wafer with manslaughter and with felony firearm. The second-degree murder charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison, and the manslaughter charge carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison. The felony firearm charge carries a penalty of two years in prison.

McBride, who appeared to be disoriented, knocked on Wafer's door on Nov. 2, 2013, following a traffic accident. The white Ford sedan she was driving crashed into a parked car in the 7200 block of Bramell at approximately 12:57am. McBride was seeking help following the accident.

McBride knocked on Wafer's door in the 16800 block of West Outer Drive in the Dearborn Heights. At 4:42 am, police responded to a 911 call, and they found McBride's lifeless body lying on the porch. She had a large gunshot wound to her head.

"It is alleged that McBride was unarmed when she was shot in the face by Wafer as she knocked on the front screen door of the house. There were no signs of forced entry at the location," Worthy said in a statement.

Wafer said through his attorney he believed someone was breaking into his house. He said he fired in self defense.

"We have issued these charges because we believe the evidence will show that self defense was not warranted," Worthy said. "Under Michigan law, there is no duty to retreat in your own home, however, someone who claims self defense must honestly and reasonably believe that he is in imminent danger of either losing his life or suffering great bodily harm and that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent that harm. This 'reasonable belief ' is not measured subjectively by the standards of the individual in question, but objectively, by the standards of a reasonable person."

McBride is the second Black motorist shot to death since September while seeking help following an automobile accident. Jonathan Ferrell, who also was unarmed, was shot to death by Randall Kerrick, a cop with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (N.C.) Police Department, after Ferrell sought help following a traffic accident.

Ferrell knocked on the door of a woman homeowner seeking help. Instead, she called the police and accused Ferrell of attempting to break into her house.

When Kerrick and another officer arrived at the scene, Ferrell approached them with his arms outstretched. One of the officers fired a Taser gun at Ferrell who was not harmed.

Kerrick then pulled his revolver, firing 12 shots at Ferrell, hitting him 10 times. He died at the scene. Police charged Kerrick with voluntary manslaughter. Kerrick said he killed Ferrell because he feared for his life, a defense routinely used by the police.

Remembering November 22, 1963 by A. Peter Bailey

Nov. 18, 2013

Remembering November 22,1963
By A. Peter Bailey

SPECIAL COMMENTARY

President John F. Kennedy

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - On November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, I was a 23-year old editorial reference clerk working in Time Inc.’s biography files. The job, among other things, required my responding to calls from Time, Life and Sports Illustrated reporters for files on individuals about whom they were writing.

As can be ascertained, the afternoon of the assassination created an absolute deluge of ASAP requests from frantic reporters for the huge number of bio files on President Kennedy, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, Jackie Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and dozens of other political and public figures even remotely connected to the Kennedy administration. As I remember we worked throughout the night under hectic but not chaotic conditions.

My initial reaction to the assassination was wonderment at how a U.S. president could be so boldly shot down in broad daylight. I must admit that I was not then and am not now among those who were dazzled by or impressed with the Kennedy administration. One of my most lasting memories from that time was the day I loudly booed President Kennedy as he was driven away after a speech at the United Nations. I had positioned myself at a turn where I knew his limousine had to slow down.

As it passed by, while most of the crowd applauded enthusiastically, I booed as loudly as I could. This resulted in hard stares from members of the Secret Service and numerous threats from onlookers, including Black ones. I quickly exited my spot, feeling satisfied about taking advantage of an opportunity to show my anger at the failure of the Kennedy administration to do more to protect the lives of Black folks who were being repeatedly brutalized by predatory white supremacist terrorists who opposed the demand for equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity in this country.

Ten of 40 names on the civil rights memorial in Montgomery, Ala. are those of people killed by terrorists during the Kennedy administration. It was several decades before any of them were arrested for those heinous crimes. The 10 included Medgar Evers and four young girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing.

I didn’t believe 50 years ago and still don’t believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only person involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Once, as a young man, I complained to my grandmother about something that was bothering me. When I asked her advice on what to about it, her response was “Boy, use your common sense.”

My common sense won’t allow me to believe the official position on the Kennedy assassination. And the possibility of anyone ever persuading me to change my mind was shattered forever when Oswald was fatally shot by Jack Ruby while in the custody of the Dallas police.

The assassination, in my opinion, was not the action of a zealot passionately promoting or defending a cause or of someone striving for the limelight since Oswald denied his involvement to the bitter end. I believe it was plotted and executed by cold-blooded professional killers with no desire for the limelight.

Whether Oswald’s cohorts were members of the FBI or CIA, pro-Castro Cubans or anti-Castro Cubans, members of the Mafia or rightwing white Americans, I don’t claim to know. I just believe he was working with someone else and those forces, as far as it is generally known 50 years later, have gotten away with successfully assassinating a president of the U.S.

Civil Rights Leaders Fight for Obama Justice Nominee by Hazel Trice Edney

Nov. 18, 2013

Rights Leaders Fight for Obama Justice Nominee
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Civil rights leaders, still shell-shocked over the GOP’s U. S. Senate rejection of Rep. Mel Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, are now expressing vehement support for former NAACP Legal Defense lawyer Debo P. Adegbile, nominated by President Obama as the next assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“Debo Adegbile is one of the preeminent civil rights litigators of his generation and a bipartisan consensus builder. His experience as the two-time defender of the Voting Rights Act in the Supreme Court puts him in a class of his own when it comes to understanding the application and enforcement of complex civil rights issues,” says Wade Henderson, president/CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a statement. “Add that to his stellar career over ten years at the nation’s leading civil rights law firm – the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund – as well as his work in the Senate and in the private sector, and it becomes clear that Adegbile’s skill set, talents, and experience make him the perfect choice to head the Civil Rights Division.”

Henderson was among several civil rights leaders on a press call last week to push their support for Adegbile, who is currently senior counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position he has held since July 2013. His nomination follows a major disappointment Oct. 31 when the Obama nomination of 30-year Democrat Congressman Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to head the FHFA was rejected by the Republican members of the Senate who refused to support advancing the nomination to a vote. The Senate's vote of 56-42 to proceed was four votes short of the 60 needed to filibuster-proof threshold needed to advance the nomination to a final vote.

Watt, a Yale Law School graduate, specializes in corporate and real estate law and is a member of the House Committees on Financial Services and the Judiciary. The GOP senators’ refusal to give enough votes to even forward his nomination to a final vote hints at the possible battle ahead for other qualified Obama nominees.

“I am very disappointed that today the Senate failed to move forward with the vote of confirmation for Rep. Mel Watt,” said CBC Chair Marsha Fudge. “At a time where American families are still recovering from the effect of the mortgage crisis, Rep. Watt’s leadership of this agency would be critical to restoring the integrity of the housing finance system and return homeownership in this country as a key to building wealth.”

The White House and the Congressional Black Caucus have both called on the Senate to reconsider Watt’s nomination. Meanwhile, the political rejection of Watts has placed rights leaders on notice as they go to bat for the 46-year-old Adegbile.

“As we navigate the new Civil Rights-era, Debo offers precisely the type of leadership necessary,” says Fudge in a statement. “From reforming America’s criminal justice system to expanding equality for all Americans, Debo has the civil rights experience and expertise needed to head the Division. Debo’s integrity, professionalism and respectable reputation as a legal practitioner and litigator are evidence that he is the right person for this incredibly important role…Members of the Congressional Black Caucus strongly support President Obama’s nomination of Debo Adegbile and encourage our colleagues in the Senate to confirm him for this position without delay.”

During his 10-year career at the LDF, Adegbile served as acting president and director-counsel, director of litigation, and special counsel. Having twice defended the Voting Rights Act before the U. S. Supreme Court, civil rights leaders are counting on his legal acumen to continually deal with the voting rights issue after the important Pre-clearance Clause was gutted early this year. Other hot civil rights issues are stand your ground, police profiling, and economic justice.

The White House has forwarded Adegbile's nomination to the Senate. He would succeed Thomas E. Perez, who resigned.

“Debo has worked tirelessly to ensure that our nation lives up to its promise of equality for all Americans,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, NAACP-LDEF president and director-counsel. “He is highly respected as one of the Nation’s leading civil rights attorneys.”

Cutting Food Assistance Is More Than Morally Wrong by William Spriggs

Nov. 18, 2013

Cutting Food Assistance Is More Than Morally Wrong

By William Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The U.S. Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services in the economy) figures show GDP per person is $53,211. That's per person, not per family. Those figures also show we annually spend $2,797 per person on food-that's $233 per person a month. After netting out imports, we sell nearly $14 billion in food overseas. Clearly America is a wealthy nation that is fully food secure.

So the issue is not America's resources of income and land, it is our choices in the distribution of our resources. Presumably, this value proposition was settled when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Food Stamp Act into law, with support from the labor movement.

To be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a family must have a total income (including any other federal assistance) that is less than 130 percent of the poverty line (except in six states with limits up to twice the poverty level); for a family of two adults and one child, that means income below $25,389 a year.

The maximum benefit for a family of three fell from $526 to $497 a month on Nov. 1. Low-income families tend to be either old or young. And young families happen to be where most of America's children live. So, there are some 21 million children who currently are fed, in part, by SNAP benefits. That is almost one in four U.S. children.

In 2009, when Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it boosted the maximum SNAP benefit to help families during the worse labor market since the Great Depression. But that boost was set to expire at the end of October 2013, in hopes the labor market would have recovered. The labor market has not recovered. There are still 1.5 million fewer payroll positions in America today than in January 2008. This means that unemployment is real; it is not the result of people being lazy in looking for work.

And young people-in particular-have been hit hardest. Among the key age groups for young parents, the share of 20- to 24-year-olds who are employed is at 61.8 percent, down from 69.3 percent in January 2008; and for those 25 to 34, the share holding down jobs has fallen to 74.6 percent, down from 79.6 percent in January 2008.

House Republicans have voted to cut SNAP, shifting the blame for the weak economy onto young workers and the weight of the costs on our children by ignoring policymakers' failures to get the economy running. In a nation so rich it can export food, this is morally wrong. Rather than pass plans to hire teachers to restore our children's classroom sizes, or hire construction workers to fix our broken roads and bridges, Republicans argue it is better to cut federal spending on things like SNAP to get the federal budget in order. Some Republicans think federal deficits are morally wrong because deficits leave bills for our children.

These same Republicans fought President Barack Obama hard to keep tax cuts in place for the wealthiest people on the planet, ignoring that those tax cuts make the federal deficit larger. And no moral calculus says we should starve our children of food and education today to save them as weaklings for the future.

This is more than morally wrong. It is bad economics. The Consumer Expenditure Survey gives a deep view of America's consumption patterns. An interesting fact in that data is that among families in the income range to qualify for SNAP, they all consume on average $20,000 to $25,000 a year. This makes sense, as it would be hard to imagine how someone could eat, be clothed and have shelter and not spend at least $20,000 a year. This means at that income level, they do not save, they spend every dollar. Cuts in their SNAP benefits mean they will have to cut something else to continue eating.

This is not a cut simply to families struggling with an economy that is not producing enough jobs and wages that are barely keeping pace with inflation. It means pulling millions of dollars out of the economy. This means less sales revenue for small businesses selling clothes or shoes or children's books. And fewer buyers mean less need for sales clerks, meaning fewer jobs.

The current economic policies of lowering the deficit by half, boosting corporate profits to record highs and breaking Dow Jones average records for stocks has not meant relief on Main Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard or César Chávez Way. We need to strengthen policies that help everyone.

Follow Spriggs on Twitter: @WSpriggs. Contact: Amaya Smith-Tune Acting Director, Media Outreach AFL-CIO 202-637-5142

Kenyan MPs, in Stealth Attack, Slash Women's Rights

Nov. 18, 2013

Kenyan MPs, in Stealth Attack, Slash Women's Rights

Millie Odhiambo, MP

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – In a stunning set-back to the equal rights movement, Kenyan male MPs voted to undo some of women's hard-fought victories that provided financial support for women in case of divorce.

In a late-night vote by parliament, revisions to the Matrimonial Property Bill by the male MPs were carried easily as only 34 women MPs were in the house. The women were beaten 87-28 in a roll call vote.

The revisions include a change giving spouses a share only of that property that's in both the couple’s names. Property in the name of only one spouse is no longer matrimonial property.

This flies in the face of the fact that family property is traditionally and as a matter of routine registered just in the husband’s name.

Women MPs wanted a simple formula where the wealth is shared equally, irrespective of what each partner contributed.

James Lomenen who led the debate, argued it would be unfair for the properties to be shared even after husbands had paid dowry.

"After paying so much in dowry, is it unfair to again ask the husbands to share properties you have made during the marriage," Lomenen said.

While sharing the wealth is dependent on contribution, not so for sharing the debt. Under the proposed revisions, any debt incurred by the household will be split equally, so long as it was “for the benefit of the marriage”.

Asman Kamama representing Tiaty said in many situations women find men with properties made before the marriage. It would be against the rule of natural justice, he said, to share equally the wealth with a woman who came with nothing.

The revisions prompted heated rebuttals from the women legislators. Millie Odhiambo of Mbita observed that equal sharing is a constitutional principle and MPs had no business rewriting the law.

Zainab Chidzuga of Kwale County pointed out that women’s contributions to marriages are more than just the financial. “A woman might be unemployed but remember she will clean her husband’s house, warm his bath water and many other things that may be considered a contribution that should enable her get an equal share of any matrimonial property.”

Esther Murugi of Nyeri Town concurred. “Whether the woman has contributed or not, she has fed the man, she has cleaned the man, she has taken care of the family. She is entitled to 50 percent.”

Female Parliamentarians are urging President Uhuru Kenyatta not to sign the bill into law.