Jan. 22, 2018

CBC Chair Predicts Democratic Victory Because of Trump Chaos 
Vows to ‘bust our butts’ to take back House in November
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – U. S. Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, has vowed to “bust our butts” to win back the House for a Democratic majority in the Nov. 6, 2018 election.

“I think it’s a real possibility. For the first time since I’ve been in Congress I think it’s a real possibility,” he said in a recent interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

Richmond predicts a Democratic win mainly because of the chaos and reputed bigotry and racial insensitivity of the Trump administration.

He listed gains for Black America that the Trump administration has attempted to turn back.

“If you look at Jeff Sessions in the Attorney General’s office rolling back to the war on drugs; rolling back the fight against voter suppression; maybe even enhancing voter suppression,” he said. “When you look at the President’s comments - that’s not a person who’s trying to be a partner with the Black Caucus nor appreciate African-American issues.”

The CBC executive committee leaders met with President Trump March 22, but declined a second meeting saying their concerns fell on deaf ears.

“We presented a 130-page policy paper. And we never got a response; nor to the eight follow up letters we got talking about issues. So until there’s some substantive issues I can’t see it,” he said.

Trump has also asked to meet with the entire Caucus, but Richmond says that’s totally out of the question.

“We’re not here to drink wine, eat cheese and have a reception. We’re here to advance policies,” Richmond said. “The Caucus overwhelmingly; almost unanimously voted not to go. Only one or two people. … We’ve gotten no real outreach from this president.”

Richmond told of how Democrats have had to fight back by making policy.

“Trump zeroed out Trio (educational programs); he zeroed out Upward Bound; he zeroed out CDBG (Community Development Block Grants), all of that in this budget. What did we do? We passed a budget that increased Pell grants, we added summer Pell, we added more money to HBCUs, we added money to block grants,” he listed. “He got rid of the Minority Business Development Agency. We added money to them.”

All 435 House seats are up for votes in November. Currently the party break down is 239 Republicans, 193 Democrats, and three vacancies. This makes it necessary for Democrats to win approximately 27 seats in order to dominate the House.

Meanwhile, Richmond said CBC and Democrats will continue to fight back where possible.

“And then we’re going to bust our butts to make sure we take back the house next year and then we’ll have some checks and balances.”

 

Jan. 21, 2018

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Her Legacy in Tatters, Faces Fury After Party's Defeat
By Lisa Vives

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) - One of the most celebrated African leaders in recent memory will soon pass the baton to her successor, sports hero George Manneh Weah, amidst an outpouring of anger and claims of betrayal by members of her Unity Party whose candidate was trounced in Liberia’s recent poll.

For the international community, it seemed unthinkable that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the so-called “Iron Lady”, would be ousted from her party. She had presided over a period of peace and economic revival and won critical support from the development community. But the Nobel Peace Prize-winner served at a time of widespread corruption, entrenched after a brutal civil war and a horrific pandemic. Ministers, including family members, were regularly cited for abuse of authority and a hoped-for prosperity failed to materialize for the large majority of citizens.  

The devastation Sirleaf inherited when she took office in 2006 was profound. Two decades of dictatorship and civil war had brought the country to its knees: Anyone with the means had left, infrastructure was decimated, and half of all Liberians were displaced, either internally or in neighboring countries. To begin to address all of these problems, Sirleaf had a budget of just $80 million in her first year in office.  

“Sirleaf delivered modest, incremental gains (but) her supporters expected a dramatic reversal of their fortunes overnight,” wrote celebrated journalists Mae Azango and Prue Clarke for Foreign Policy magazine.  

“To some degree, she was responsible for fueling those outsized expectations.”  

Sirleaf became so toxic at home that on the eve of Liberia’s Oct. 10 general election, her own vice president running for her job, Joseph Boakai, tried to distance himself from her on the campaign trail. “If you park a race car in the garage for 12 years, it gets rusty,” Boakai said, referring to Sirleaf, at a presidential debate. Left unsaid was the fact that he was parked right there beside her for all 12 of those years.  

The victory of one-time soccer star Weah has sparked mild panic among some Liberians, international donors and investors over his lack of international experience and for his choice of vice president, the former Mrs. Charles Taylor - a wildcard.  

Jewel Howard Taylor, who divorced Charles Taylor in 2006, is not a political novice, however. She established her own political track record, becoming an elected senator in 2005 and the chair of the Senate Health and Social Welfare Committee on Gender, Women and Children. On the campaign trail she promised to rebuild wrecked infrastructure and create jobs for young people — promises made by her ex-husband’s party back in 1997. 

An informal survey by the Liberian FrontPageAfrica online, displayed Liberians’ range of reactions. “(Mrs. Sirleaf) restored Liberia’s lost image and did lots of good things for this country; but we the Liberians are ungrateful. Thank God for guiding her to end her tenure successfully and turn over to another government,” said Korku Ballah.
“She served as inspiration for many women and girls in Liberia, Africa and other parts of the world,” said Alex Dahn, founder & CEO of the Liberia Empowerment Vocational Training Program. 

David Dunah of Pennsylvania, wrote: “For me I would go with the recent orator who said "SOME DONE AND SOME NOT DONE". We enjoyed peace but the cost of living is hard, we enjoyed good roads in Monrovia but drive to Maryland, Sinoe, Lofa… She encouraged girl's education but many girls got rape, no justice. On the overall some got done and some didn't.” 

But a piece under the name Sheikh Al Moustapha Kouyateh contained a long litany of alleged offenses, from the mortgaging of resources (68 concessions), to the failure of institutions to fight corruption (over US$450 million disappearing from the Central Bank of Liberia), to the commercial exploitation of agriculture with Lebanese partners (We no longer grow our own food), to a crackdown on media (Where is Star Radio, Costa FM and many other media institutions that were shut down?). 

“I am not against foreigners working in our country but I'm against them coming to take our resources and our land without any production of our resources,” Kouyateh concluded. 

“Madam President, thank you for the peaceful transition as I hope that you'll also mobilize the same wisdom to give accounts to the Liberian people of the embezzlement, injustices, humiliation and other malpractices during your rulership.” 

President Weah, the 24^th President of the Republic of Liberia, was set to be sworn in on Jan. 22.

GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORK creates and distributes news and feature articles on current affairs in Africa to media outlets, scholars, students and activists in the U.S. and Canada. Our goal is to introduce important new voices on topics relevant to Americans, to increase the perspectives available to readers in North America and to bring into their view information about global issues that are overlooked or under-reported by mainstream media.

Jan. 21, 2018

Consumer Protection Payday Rule at Risk, Just Like Student Loan Protections

By Charlene Crowell

 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - An important consumer protection rule that was to take effect January 16 is now being “reconsidered” by the same agency that was to enforce it - the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

 

After years of fierce advocacy that drew bright lines between a predatory lending industry and a coalition of concern that looks like America, a rule was announced in 2017, designed to ensure that loans only went to consumers who could afford to repay them. The rule also curbed triple-digit interest rates on small dollar loans like payday.

 

The new announcement came on the watch of Mick Mulvaney who was hand-picked by the White House to serve as CFPB’s Acting Director. The validity of that appointment is currently the subject of two lawsuits. Mulvaney also continues to serve as President Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

 

But Mulvaney’s years of serving as a member of South Carolina’s congressional delegation could help to explain how an agency created to be the consumers’ financial cop on the beat still supports lenders who helped to finance his campaigns.

"Payday lenders spent $63,000 helping Mick Mulvaney get elected to Congress and now their investment is paying off many times over," said Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. "By scrapping this rule, Mulvaney will allow his campaign donors to continue to generate massive fees peddling some of the most abusive financial products in existence."

Following the Bureau’s statement that it would reopen the rule, Rebecca Borné, a Senior Policy Counsel with the Center for Responsible Lending said, “Today’s announcement is a big deal and could become a terrible deal for consumers. The human devastation caused by payday loans, which average nearly 400 percent annual percentage rates (APR), has been extensively documented. For more than five years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau studied the issue, welcomed public input, and crafted a rule to help stop the payday loan debt trap.”

 

Advocates opposed to payday lending are as broad as the loans are harmful: clergy of all colors stand with civil rights leaders and consumer advocates, all working at both the state and federal levels with a central message: Stop the debt trap that preys upon people with the fewest financial resources. Loans that charge interest rates that double or even triple the amount of money borrowed worsen --not help -- those suffering from financial stress.

 

“I cannot imagine a single legitimate reason to go back and undo this good work,” said Stephen K. Reeves, associate coordinator of partnerships and advocacy for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “At the very least, this decision should be left to a permanent director who has been confirmed by Senate.”

 

“Given acting director Mick Mulvaney’s prior statements about the work of the Bureau and his long history of vigorous defense of payday lenders,”, continued Reeves, “this action should not come as a surprise.”

 

Now, with plans to “reconsider” the rulemaking, the long-awaited payday rule may be undone entirely.

 

This column in earlier editions spoke to similar delays in student loan rules. Efforts to address mounting and unsustainable student debt, servicer errors and career training institutions that failed to deliver what was promised were put in place during the Obama administration through its Borrower Defense to Repayment Rule and a second, Gainful Employment. But under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, rulemaking has begun anew.

 

Could it be that an administration pledge to deregulate federal agencies is being advanced by President Trump’s cabinet?

 

Beyond CFPB and the Department of Education, HUD Secretary Carson recently pledged to ‘review’ the agency’s rule to “Affirmatively Advance Affirmation Action”. And what will happen to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division that worked hand-in-hand with CFPB to punish financial bad actors found to violate fair lending laws?

 

In the meantime, financial relief from payday and car-title lending is lost particularly for communities of color where these predatory products are most often sold.

 

But just as the old Negro spiritual, I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired, brought renewed vigor to preceding generations in the struggle to overcome the vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow, in 2018 those same words of defiant struggle written and composed by Harry Thacker Burleigh still ring true:

 

“I don't feel no ways tired,
I've come too far from where I started from.
Nobody told me that the road would be easy,
I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.”

 

As Black History Month approaches, may we remember who we are and all that our forefathers encountered and overcame. The fight for freedom includes our rights to fair lending.

 

Charlene Crowell is the Center for Responsible Lending’s deputy communications director. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Jan. 21, 2018

When Someone Tells You Who They Are, Believe Them!
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Why are we having all these people from sh*thole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met Wednesday.” -Washington Post January 11, 2018

When someone tells you who they are you should believe them.  President Donald Trump has once again made it very clear; he is a racist. Before he decided to insult Haitians and immigrants from African countries he efficiently targeted Mexican’s and African Americans in the same Tweet, “Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and Hispanics...” We can never forget one of Trump’s most infamous forays into bigotry, "When Mexico sends it people, they're not sending their best…They're bringing drugs…They're rapists.”

The late Dr. Francis Cress Welsing defined racism/White Supremacy as, “The local and global power system structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as White…This system consists of patterns of perception…thought, speech, action and emotional response…” Trump’s historic patters of thought expressed through his words, actions and policies fit this definition to a “t”.

When someone tells you who they are you should believe them. President Donald Trump is also a sexual predator. Again, the well-publicized foray into misogyny, “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them…I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab ’em by the p@%%y. You can do anything.”

When someone tells you who they are you should believe them.  President Donald Trump is a liar.  According to The New York Times, after admitting that the voice on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape was his and making a feeble attempt to apologize for it, “Mr. Trump told a Republican senator that he wanted to investigate the recording that had him boasting about grabbing women’s genitals. “We don’t think that was my voice…”

This recent demonstration of Trump’s racism has many people shocked but few are surprised.  Most of us are just disgusted. It is interesting to watch those hacks at FOX News attempt to spin this into a them vs. us or partisan creation “…to distract Americans from Trump’s accomplishments”.

America, the international global hegemon, the waning empire - finds itself dealing with the reality that its president has once again inferred that he sees Europeans as superior and people of color as inferior, “…the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway.”  He sees people of color as “other”. It is an “us vs. them” binary world. Racist rhetoric is the language of racists. When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

This “Trumpian” mindset is not new.  During WWII President Roosevelt was asked why Italian Americans were not being interned like Japanese Americans, he replied, “I don't care about the Italians…They are a lot of opera singers…” The Japanese Americans were “other”, Italian Americans being of European decent were like him.  Even though Italian and German Americans did suffer indignities, they were never interned and mistreated like Japanese Americans.

As I have listened to the debate about Trump’s latest comments, many pundits and analysts are outraged about his “shithole country” reference.  However, few are asking the more fundamental question, “what made these countries “shitholes” (and not to say that they really are)?” The answer, American foreign policy and European settler colonialism. Haiti struggles to this day simply because after the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) it was the first Black republic in the world to overthrow a European power.  America and France never want Haiti to be the shining example of successful liberation and freedom that it should be. People should be asking the Clinton Foundation what happened to the $13B in aid that went to Haiti after the earthquake.

Mineral and resource rich African countries such as Zimbabwe and Congo will never be allowed to organically develop.  They will always be oppressed by America and European forces because these colonists and neo-colonialists will never allow the strategic minerals held in these countries to be controlled by Africans.

Another question to ask is where is the outrage from Republican leadership? When engaged in analysis historical context is very important. Trump and his base did not develop in a vacuum. Sen.’s McConnell and Graham, et al's failure to condemn Trump's "shithole" comment is consistent. They were conspicuously silent in 2010 when Tea Party members spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver called Rep. John Lewis a "nigger" and Rep. Barney Frank a “faggot.” Their inability to condemn Trump is not necessarily because they agree with him (even though in my opinion they probably do) it's because they are afraid. They fear what Dr. King called "the white backlash" and what Dr. Walters called "the politics of resentment.  They fear the well-financed echo chamber called The Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus.

The ethnic demographics of America are changing. This change is striking fear in the hearts of many White Americans. Looking back at the rhetoric it is even easier to see that when Trump discusses “protecting the American worker” and bringing in highly educated wealthier “English speakers” with “higher job skills” he’s is speaking to White people about White people. Therefore, even though many Americans are appalled by Trump latest raciest display, the White House is defending it.  According to CNN, "The President's 'shithole' remark is being received much differently inside of the White House than it is outside of it. Though this might enrage Washington, staffers predict the comment will resonate with his base, much like his attacks on NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem did not alienate it."

As we move closer to the 2018 mid-term elections the ideological lines are becoming clearer and clearer. Just when the good people of Alabama dispatched the alleged pedophile Roy Moore, Arizonians will now be faced with the anti-immigrant, racial profiler and birther Joe Arpaio and his bid for the US Senate.  These mid-terms will be a true litmus test.  Will the bigotry and hatred of Trump’s base continue to carry the day, wreak havoc on our system of justice and control the Republican Party? Or, will people of good conscience and good will come to the polls in record numbers to reject Trump’s politics of racism and hate in an effort to truly Make America Great Again instead of making America White again?

People have been apologizing for Trump since he announced his candidacy, saying, “he’s not a politician” and “it will just take time for him to grow into being presidential”.  This is the same guy who was sued by the DOJ in 1973 for housing discrimination. He had his employees secretly mark the applications of minorities with codes, such as “No. 9” and “C” for “colored,” according to government accounts filed in federal court.

I have always known, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.  The key is to act on what they tell you.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon,” on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com

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