Oct. 11, 2016

Media Outlets Label Trump a Serial Liar, Racist, Misogynist, Birther, and Bully
By Zenitha Prince 

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The New York Times’ Editorial Board, in a Nov. 24, 2015 editorial titled “Mr. Trump’s Applause Lies,” pointed out the candidate’s frequent racist assertions about African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Muslims—anybody non-White—and the responsibility of the Fourth Estate to call him to task on those untruths.

“History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act,” the editorial stated, concluding, “It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.”

Throughout this presidential election season, a wide array of news outlets have been doing that—calling out the Republican candidate’s lies, and his racist and misogynistic statements and behavior even when the candidate and his surrogates attempt to rewrite history by denying those facts.

For example, in July 2015, major online news source The Huffington Post began ending each of its stories on Trump with an editor’s note that reads: “Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims—1.6 billion members of an entire religion—from entering the U.S.”

The caveat was prompted by the Trump campaign’s metamorphosis from a “sideshow” to “an ugly and dangerous force in American politics,” Arianna Huffington explained in a July 12, 2015 post.

“We believe that the way we cover the campaign should reflect this shift. And part of that involves never failing to remind our audience who Trump is and what his campaign really represents,” she said. “So if Trump’s words and actions are racist, we’ll call them racist. If they’re sexist, we’ll call them sexist. We won’t shrink from the truth or be distracted by the showmanship.”

The editorial and commentary pages of major newspapers also have provided a steady counterbalance to Trump’s incendiary and mendacious remarks.

“Let’s not mince words: Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist,” the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote in his opening of a December 2015 opinion piece.

The Times, which is located in Trump’s backyard, has also kept up a steady drum beat, pointing out the candidate’s outrageous ideologies and behavior on its opinion pages.

Even on the pages of The Wall Street Journal, a traditionally conservative publication, anti-Trump sentiments have resounded, with columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz calling Trump the candidate of “white supremacists and swastika devotees.”

Perhaps most impactful, however, have been the endorsements from major publications—especially from those with little to no histories of endorsing candidates and from conservative-leaning outlets.

The Atlantic magazine, for example, endorsed Hillary Clinton in its November 2016 issue—only the third time it has endorsed a presidential candidate since its founding in 1857. In the piece titled, “Against Trump,” the editors call the Republican candidate “spectacularly unfit for office.”

“His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read,” the indictment read.

USA Today, which has never endorsed a candidate, made headlines last month when it broke tradition by advising its readers that Trump was “unfit for presidency.”

The Dallas Morning News, broke from a 75-year tradition of endorsing Republicans to back Hillary Clinton.

“There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November…. Resume vs. resume, judgment vs. judgment, this election is no contest,” the paper wrote. The editorial board further said of Trump: “Trump’s values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best.”

Other conservative newspapers like the Cincinnati Enquirer, Arizona Republic and the San Diego Union-Tribune  put aside partisanship to denounce Trump, with the Enquirer declaring: “Trump is a clear and present danger to our country.”

Oct. 9, 2016

Joint Center Report Confirms Blacks Wait Longer to Vote

Spencer Overton, President/CEO, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Black voters wait longer to cast ballots, discouraging them from voting, according to a study released by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C.

The report, titled “Reducing Long Lines to Vote,” reported African-Americans waited an average of 23 minutes to vote compared with 19 minutes for Hispanics, 15 minutes for Asians, 13 minutes for Native Americans and 12 minutes for whites.

The Joint Center, led by Spencer Overton, a George Washington University law professor, has released its report just prior to the 2016 presidential election and President Barack Obama encouraging African-Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

During the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner Sept. 17 in Washington, D.C., President Obama told the black-tie audience that it would be a personal insult to his legacy if the Black community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in the election.

There is a push to get a strong Black-voter turnout for Clinton. The New York Post released a recent poll showing that a growing number of African-Americans prefer Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, to Clinton, but Clinton still holds an overwhelming lead among African-American voters, according to a CNN poll that has her at 90 percent.

Clinton, in 1996, called Black teens super predators in a speech supporting the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That act, signed by her husband, President Bill Clinton, was a tough-on-crime legislation that sent a lot of Black men to prison. President Clinton also pushed through the North American Free Trade Agreement that has cost Black workers thousands of good-paying jobs. 

Until recently, Trump said President Obama was not born in the United States to delegitimize Obama’s presidency.

The Joint Center said one study estimated that long lines deterred at least 730,000 from voting in the 2012 presidential election.

In Florida, a key state in the presidential election, wait times averaged 42 minutes compared with wait times of six minutes in New Jersey.

Florida’s Miami-Dade County had the highest percentage of people of color. In Miami-Dade, 85 percent of voters had voting wait times that averaged 73 minutes after the polls closed.

Citrus, the Florida county with the lowest percentage of people of color, had no lines when the polls closed, the Joint Center reported.

Oct. 10, 2016

Black Women Will Decide the Next President
By Wylecia Wiggs Harris

Wylecia Wiggs Harris, executive director,
League of Women Voters

Special Commentary

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Without a doubt, women will play a critical role in the presidential election this year. In 2012, women overall had a higher voting rate (64 percent) than men (60 percent),according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the most powerful group of voters will be African-American women. In both the 2012 and 2008 presidential elections, Black women voted at the highest rate of any racial, ethnic or gender group. Four years ago, 74 percent of eligible Black women went to the polls.

The next president cannot win without the support of Black women. But despite our political power—or because of it—our voting right is under siege. Today, more than 30 states have introduced voter suppression legislation, with laws passing in 14 states and laws pending in 8. For example, in North Carolina, where Black women made up more than 23 percent of registered women voters in 2012, a League of Women Voters-led lawsuit successfully resulted in a federal appeals court overturning a controversial law that sought to restrict early voting and eliminate same-day registration. Other voter suppression laws enacted by states make it significantly harder for millions of eligible voters to cast their ballots by requiring that voters present government-issued photo IDs in order to vote, cutting early voting hours, taking away the voting rights of ex-criminal offenders, and requiring proof-of-citizenship documents in order to vote. While there have been several key victories to overturn these challenges in recent months, the struggle for full voting rights remains.

Rather than become discouraged, we must use these voting restrictions as motivation. Recently National Voter Registration Day was observed nationwide as an nonpartisan effort to register thousands of voters in a single day in communities and online. When millions of women head to the polls in November, they will elect the entire U.S. House of Representatives, decide who will fill one-third of the seats in the U.S. Senate, and determine many gubernatorial races. Nationwide, thousands of races and ballot initiatives will be decided. But nearly a quarter of all eligible Americans are not registered to vote, including disproportionately high numbers of young adults, minorities, low-income Americans and those who have recently moved. These are the groups most at risk of being affected by voting restrictions. With so much at stake for all of us this election year, now is the time to ask our family, friends, neighbors and coworkers if they are registered to vote and if their voter registration is up-to-date.

The stakes in this election are especially high for Black women and political candidates that want to earn our votes must address the issues that matter most to us: affordable health care, living wage jobs, college affordability and criminal justice reform.

To me, voting is a key form of taking action on the issues that affect our lives. It was the tragic events on June 17, 2015 that awakened my inner activist. On that day, my mother was sitting in church in Columbia, S.C.,  when a shooter walked into a church two hours away and systematically murdered nine people.

The Charleston shootings awakened my commitment to standing up for the rights of others and the underserved. And it awakened my desire to engage in the important conversations on the issues that define our society. That commitment is also what led me to the League of Women Voters.

For nearly 100 years, the League of Women Voters has worked tirelessly, day in and day out, to ensure that all eligible voters—particularly those from traditionally underrepresented or underserved communities—have the opportunity and the information to exercise their right to vote. For many Americans, the League is synonymous with candidate forums, voter guides and election protection.

There is still work to be done. Regardless of party affiliation, now is not the time for us to rest on our laurels. Now is the time to make our voices heard, to awaken the activist inside each of us, and the most powerful way to do that is to vote. The next president cannot win without Black women.

Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CAE, is the Chief Executive Officer of the League of Women Voters of the U.S.Visit www.VOTE411.org to register to vote and get information on early voting options, voter ID requirements and candidates running for state house office or higher in every state. This article originally appeared on Huffington Post Black Voices on Sept. 27, 2016.