By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - U. S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who has received consistent Fs on the NAACP Civil Rights report card, is Republican Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president.

Voting in agreement with NAACP civil rights issues only 10 percent of the time according to the Report Card for the first year of the 112^th Congress, Ryan opposed NAACP-supported issues, including funding support for the Special Supplemental Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children; continued funding to settle the “Pigford II” racial discrimination lawsuit between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Black Farmers; and support for the Election Assistance Commission.

According to the Report Card, released in April, every Republican in Congress got an F, failing on what the NAACP calls "bread and butter issues" for African-Americans.

Billing themselves as “America’s Comeback Team”, Romney and Ryan first appeared together on Saturday, Aug. 11 in a Norfolk, Va. shipyard.

“His leadership begins with character and values. Paul is a man of tremendous character,” Romney told the cheering audience in front of the USS Wisconsin. “In a city that's far too often characterized by pettiness and personal attacks, Paul Ryan is a shining exception. He doesn't demonize his opponents. He understands that honorable people can have honest differences. He appeals to the better angels of our nature.”

Ryan, a seven-term congressman, is known as “an intellectual leader” in the Republican Party, largely due to his fiscal conservatism as chairman of the House Budget Committee and as a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy, Social Security, health care and trade laws.

In his initial speeches over the weekend, he mostly promoted Romney as “a leader with the skills, the background and the character that our country needs at this crucial time in its history” and criticized President Obama.

“Following four years of failed leadership, the hopes of our country, which have inspired the world, are growing dim. They need someone to revive them. Governor Romney is the man for this moment.”

Preparing to fire back, President Obama, Saturday, quieted a Chicago crowd that booed his first mention of Ryan as Romney’s vice presidential candidate. Obama congratulated Ryan and described him as “a decent man” and “a family man” who will serve as an “articulate spokesman for Governor Romney's vision.”

But, Obama - who, as a U. S. senator, made straight As on the NAACP Report Card - contrasted his record, explaining to the audience, “It's a vision that I fundamentally disagree with. My opponent and Congressman Ryan and their allies in Congress, they all believe that if we just get rid of more regulations on big corporations and we give more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, it will lead to jobs and prosperity for everybody else. That's what they're proposing. That's where they'll take us if they win.”

Obama continued, “The centerpiece of Governor Romney's entire economic plan is a new $5 trillion tax cut, a lot of it going to the wealthiest Americans. This is on top of the Bush tax cuts. Last week we found out that to pay for this $5 trillion tax cut, not only would we see them gut education investments; gut investments in science and research, gut investments in things like rebuilding our roads and our bridges, but it turns out that Governor Romney's tax plan would also raise taxes on middle-class families by an average of $2,000 each.”

The introduction of Ryan is widely viewed as the firing shot for the last 80 days before the Nov. 6 election in which voters will choose between the Romney-Ryan or the Obama-Biden ticket. Though many African-Americans are disgruntled due to high unemployment rates, President Obama has offset much dissatisfaction with the success of his Affordable Health Care Act, which Romney still vows to repeal despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of it.

The historicity of his first Black presidency will likely also play a role in the Black vote. This is coupled with the fact that activists are aggressively arguing that despite economic woes that remain, the conservative fiscal policies of a Romney-Ryan administration would make life worse for African-Americans.

Obama is running slightly ahead of Romney in most polls. But, Democrats are pulling out all stops, including the announcement that former President Bill Clinton, still extremely popular among Blacks, will introduce President Obama at the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, as Ryan’s introduction has apparently revved up the Romney campaign and his conservative Republican base, President Obama is strategically hammering his successes in contrast with Romney's views:

“And when we saved the auto industry, Mr. Romney said, let’s ‘let Detroit go bankrupt.’ I said let’s bet on American workers. And now the American auto industry has come roaring back. And I believe that manufacturing can come roaring back here in America if we make good choices,” the President said in a private campaign event in Chicago on Sunday, Aug. 12.

Obama continued, “Mr. Romney says, ‘my top priority - the first thing I’ll do is kill Obamacare.’ Well, let me say this. We’ve got 6.5 million young people already who have got health insurance on their parent’s plan because of Obamacare. Seniors are paying lower prescription drug costs now because of Obamacare. Children with preexisting conditions can’t be refused insurance because of Obamacare. And soon, all adults will be able to get health insurance even if they’ve got a preexisting condition, because of Obamacare. We’ve got preventive care for everybody. Insurances can’t drop you. And women are having more control over their health care choices. That was the right thing to do. We’re not going backwards. We’re going forward.”

By Dr. E. Faye Williams

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In 1982-1985, I was busy studying in law school. I admit when one is in law school, there is little time left to read anything but law books. If I heard about atrocities committed in El Salvador during that time, surely Mitt Romney, who could afford far more leisure reading than I could, must have heard about the horrific things going on.

On January 27, 1982, a New York Times foreign correspondent told us about interviews with people in a small mountain village and surrounding hamlets who gave clear evidence that a major massacre occurred. He reported that he saw charred skulls and bones of dozens of bodies buried under burned-out roofs, beams and shattered tiles. At the edge of a nearby cornfield, he saw remains of young men, women and children. In another province, peasants said relatives and friends had been killed by Government soldiers the past December. They’d compiled a list of names, ages and villages of 733--mostly children, women and old people, who they say were murdered by Government soldiers. The Human Rights Commission working with the Catholic Church put the number at 926.

Human Rights Watch said these killers were an elite unit created, funded, trained and equipped by the U.S. They were engaged in the murder of many civilians. The reporter who shared this information was reassigned to the Financial Desk. He took a leave to write a book about the civil war in El Salvador. When he returned to the Times, he was sent back to the Financial desk and then to the Metro desk. He resigned. His treatment was an obvious attempt to hide the facts of what he had seen in El Salvador. But the TRUTH was out!!!

The tragic stories of plant closings by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital pale in comparison to Romney’s connection to these horrific events in El Salvador. About Romney, a recent Huffington Post article asserted that “Romney “defied his own beliefs” for personal gain. Now, he wants to be President!” Huff Post said, “Mitt Romney Started Bain With Money from Families Tied To Death Squads! Remembering the widely-broadcast news reports of the assassination of the beloved Archbishop Oscar Romero and other horrific murders in El Salvador, it is impossible to believe that Romney had not heard of these events before turning to investors linked to these atrocities for the“blood money” he sought to start Bain Capital.

Without question, Romney knew or should’ve known what was going on in El Salvador. He pushed these concerns aside and went for the money, receiving about 9 million dollars. He was so connected that he went back for more for his Presidential race! Romney said, "Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital." He said he owes a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent—even naming some known to be financing death squads.

The memory of Archbishop Romero, the three American churchwomen and tens of thousands of people slain deserves an answer from Romney about the money he got from the Miami families tied to their death. We can’t just say, “That was a long time ago”, and go on with business as usual -- or when they come in the morning, it could be for any one of us!

We have the right to know if these allegations about Romney are true. It isn’t enough to say, “We had investors in El Salvador, but had the families checked out.” What is the real cost of the money that made Romney so rich and out of touch with struggling Americans?

(Dr. Williams is Chair of the National Congress of Black Women. www.nationalcongressbw.org. 202/678-6788.)

To Be Equal
Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Prejudice, hatred, starvation…I’m tired of praying for things we don’t want to change.” - Stevie Wonder

From start to finish, the 2012 National Urban League Conference in New Orleans was hotter than a New Orleans summer. It also may have been our most successful gathering ever. The Conference opened on July 25th with a major domestic policy speech by President Obama in which he announced a new initiative promoting educational excellence for African Americans. And it closed on July 28th, with words and songs of inspiration by American musical icon, Stevie Wonder, who, along with Attorney General Eric Holder, received a National Urban League “Living Legend” Award.

For more than 40 years, Stevie Wonder has gifted generations of Americans with his unequalled talents as a musician, songwriter and singer. From his days as the harmonica playing, hand clapping 12 year old “Little Stevie Wonder” in the early 1960’s to his status as a multiple-Grammy-winning icon today, Stevie has amassed one of the most prolific and recognizable song-books in the history of American music. His repertoire is full of the lyrics of love and music meant to lift the spirit, challenge injustice, heal the soul, and promote peace. In the early 1980’s, Stevie was a leader in the campaign to declare Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday. The song he wrote and recorded about that effort, “Happy Birthday,” became an anthem of the King Holiday movement and its chorus has since become a standard sing-a-long at African American birthday parties.

In recent years, Stevie has expanded his social activism even further beyond the stage and studio. He has lent his voice and some of the proceeds from his songs to ending South African apartheid, helping people with disabilities, fighting against hunger and homelessness and aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. For 16 years, he has provided toys for children and families in need with his annual House Full of Toys benefit concert. In 2009, United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-moon named Stevie Wonder a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Upon accepting his Living Legend award during our Whitney M. Young Awards gala, Stevie delivered a heartfelt appeal for people around the world to come together to end prejudice, hatred and starvation and to live up to the high ideals that are the focus of so much prayer and so little action. He said “It’s time to get beyond those things that have crippled us for centuries.” One of those crippling drawbacks is voter suppression which has once again reared its ugly head. Guaranteeing the right to vote for every American is the focus of the National Urban League’s “Occupy the Vote” campaign. It was also the theme of our Conference.

At the conclusion of his remarks, Stevie could not resist sitting down at the piano and inviting the rapt audience to join him in a medley of some of his greatest hits, including “Don’t you Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” It was a fitting way to end our Conference. The Living Legend award honors those who most exemplify the ideals of the Urban League movement. We could not have chosen two better recipients this year than U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the legendary Stevie Wonder.