May 26, 2013

NEWS ANALYSIS

Black Students Flock to STEM Fields, Yet Businesses Push for More Temporary Workers
By William Spriggs 

William Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Over last weekend, young people watched or read about President Obama speaking at Morehouse College and first lady Michelle Obama addressing the graduates of Bowie State University. Hopefully they were inspired by seeing so many young and gifted people finishing the course they chose to follow. Well, here is a little known set of facts.

Those colleges are both historically Black colleges-known as HBCUs-and they graduate a disproportionate share of the nation's Black science, technical, engineering and math majors-the very majors everyone points to as the skills America will need to succeed. And, it turns out, HBCUs are important because those fields are the backbone of the new Black middle class.

More Blacks work in computer-related occupations than are employed as elementary and middle school teachers or postal workers. And, like those students at Morehouse and Bowie State, Black college students are more likely to choose computer science as a major than White students. In part because of the high share of blacks who major in computer science and because of the large number of Black college students, there are more baccalaureate degrees awarded to African- Americans than to Asian-Americans in computer science.

Now, a great challenge lies ahead. Having found a path to the middle class through education and training, business interests are pushing hard in Congress to import temporary workers to do computer-based jobs. This while there are still 20,000-plus fewer Blacks employed as computer programmers and systems analysts since their employment peaked in 2008.

But, while those workers continue to search to get back to the high-tech jobs they trained for, we have seen businesses increase requests for H-1B visas (visas for high-tech workers). And now the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted ludicrous amendments, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in the immigration bill, that refuse to give America's workers a first shot at these jobs. These amendments would even allow businesses to fire American workers and replace them with temporary workers.

The AFL-CIO is fighting to restore some reason here. We need to protect American workers' huge investment in college loans to get trained in computer and science skills the country needs, while providing a road map to citizenship for all aspiring Americans.

So, the AFL-CIO is challenging Sen. Hatch and the business lobby to make sure there are safeguards to keep a path to the middle class open.

William Spriggs serves as chief economist to the AFL-CIO and is a professor in, and former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University.  Bill is also former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor.

NEWS ANALYSIS

President Obama’s Opaque Transparency
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

“We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency… Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.” President Barack Obama – WhiteHouse.gov 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Over the past few weeks the Obama administration has been embroiled in a number of controversies.  Three of which are the Benghazi talking points; the Department of Justice obtained through a subpoena two months of telephone records of Associated Press reporters; and the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status.

Let’s look at each of these issues separately.  First, the Benghazi talking points.  Conservatives such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator’s Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are accusing the Obama administration of covering up the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to help the president's chances in the election battle with Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

After a release of over 100 pages of emails between the CIA and the Department of State, the record is clear that there was a disagreement between David H. Petraeus, former director of the C.I.A., and his assistant, Michael J. Morell, over how much detail to provide.  The conclusion that one draws from this is it was not the administration concerned about reelection, it was officials in the government such as Petraeus and others at the Department of State who were concerned about how this attack would reflect upon them.

What gets lost in this conservative echo chamber is the critical analysis of why did the Obama administration agree to remove a leader of a sovereign country who was posing no immediate threat to American interests.  Senator Obama railed against the Bush administration (and rightfully so) for the illegal invasion of Iraq but then as president engages in similar chicanery.

Also, how has this illegal and ill-advised blunder made America safer when as a result of destabilizing Libya there are now thousands of surface-to-air missiles (SAMS), rocket propelled grenades (RPG’s) and other dangerous weapons showing up in Mali and other countries in the region? As Secretary of Defense Gates said on Face the Nation, “Well, given the number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from Qaddafi's arsenals, I would not have approved sending an aircraft, a single aircraft-- over Benghazi under those circumstances.”

Second, the DOJ vs. AP. The Justice Department sought and was granted a subpoena to obtain two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press (AP).  According to CNN this is related to a DOJ investigation of how the AP obtained and then published details of a foiled bomb plot that targeted a U.S. bound aircraft leaked in May 2012.

For as unsettling as it may be to know that the DOJ is investigating journalists, the DOJ followed the law and did nothing illegal.  There is a First Amendment protection of the press but there is no “shield law” protecting journalists and their sources at the federal level.  Just ask Judith Miller who spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify about her source in revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame (and ask “holier than thou” VP Cheney how Judith Miller received the information).

According to The New York Times, President Obama now backs a proposal by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) which says reporters do not have to disclose the names of confidential sources or their means of communicating with them.  The real question is will President Obama try to water down a revived Schumer plan the way he tried to in 2009. In 2009, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and then-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) introduced a bill that sought to prevent federal officials from compelling journalists to reveal sources or information under threat of jail time. The Obama administration worked to water down the bill by seeking a far broader national security exemption and by instructing judges to be deferential to executive branch assertions about whether a leak caused or was likely to cause such harm.  Is “watered-down” support really support?

Finally, the Justice Department is investigating the IRS for targeting Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status. The inspector general’s report, released Tuesday, does not indicate that Washington initiated the targeting of conservative groups. But it does say a top supervisor in Washington did not adequately supervise agents in the field even after she learned the agents were acting improperly.

According to The Dallas Morning News, IRS agents were trying to determine whether the political activities of such groups disqualified them for tax-exempt status. These groups were claiming tax-exempt status as organizations promoting social welfare. Unlike other charitable groups, they can engage in political activity. But politics cannot be their primary mission.

When examined individually, each of these “scandals” can be reasonably explained. None of them reach the impeachable standard of Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution “High crimes and misdemeanors.”  They tend to indicate a poor management style and too much delegation similar to the way a college professor would allow his graduate students to coordinate their own group projects.

When viewed in the larger context of increased drone attacks, a president seeking to allow the U.S. Army to indefinitely detain American citizens, and an Attorney General Holder who says President of the United States can assassinate American citizen’s any place in the world without judicial review, it makes the “transparent” government that a majority of Americans voted for opaque at best.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon,” and a Lecturer  in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C.  Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

May 19, 2013

Obama Approval Ratings Rise Amidst Scandals
By Hazel Trice Edney

President Barack Obama is reflected in a mirror talking with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough before speaking at the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga. May 19. A painting of the President stands in the foreground. PHOTO: Pete Souza/The White House

Morehouse class of 2013 is caught in the rain, but still reacts to President Obama's speech. PHOTO: The White House

President Obama speaks to graduates at Morehouse College. PHOTO: The White House

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The 2013 Morehouse College Commencement theme, “Keeping Our Focus,” defined by the university’s President John Wilson as attending to important matters “to the exclusion of distractions” appears to also describe the strategy employed by its graduation speaker – President Barack Obama.

With Washington scandals raging in the background, Obama focused keenly on the crucial challenges of the economy and jobs in America. In Sunday’s speech, he told the graduates at the Atlanta-based university that his job is to push for domestic policies that will make life better for them and everyone else.

“There’re places where jobs are still too scarce and wages are still too low; where schools are underfunded and violence is pervasive; where too many of our men spend their youth not behind a desk in a classroom, but hanging out on the streets or brooding behind a jail cell,” he told the class of all males.

He continued, “My job, as President, is to advocate for policies that generate more opportunity for everybody - policies that strengthen the middle class and give more people the chance to climb their way into the middle class; policies that create more good jobs and reduce poverty, and educate more children, and give more families the security of health care, and protect more of our children from the horrors of gun violence.  That's my job.  Those are matters of public policy, and it is important for all of us - black, white and brown - to advocate for an America where everybody has got a fair shot in life.  Not just some.  Not just a few,” he said to rousing applause.

Those applause appear to reflect rising approval of the way the President is doing his job. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation International survey, conducted over the weekend, showed his job performance disapproval at 45 percent, but performance approval at 53 percent, rising from 51 percent just last month. The poll was in sync with a Gallop poll conducted about the same time, which also showed rising approval for the way the President is handling his job.

In his fifth year, President Obama is facing the biggest scandals of his administration, drawing wide spread scrutiny and Congressional hearings. Those controversies include the targeting by the Internal Revenue Service of Tea Party and other conservative groups as they applied for tax exempt status; continuing questions about how the Obama administration handled the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a U.S ambassador and three other Americans; and -  most recently - scrutiny over the secret collection of Associated Press phone records as part of a government probe into leaks of classified information.

The President has not ignored the scandals, but he appears to be keeping his distance and only addressing the issues as necessary while allowing investigating agencies, including Congressional committees, to do their jobs. Though the IRS and Associate Press controversies appear to have drawn bi-partisan outrage, Republican law makers and pundits made rounds on Sunday talk shows with specific criticism of the Obama Administration.

Meanwhile, at Morehouse’s rainy graduation, his second spring commencement address after Ohio State earlier this month, the President appeared to enjoy a love fest of support in a comfortable home base of African-Americans at the alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He welcomed the opportunity to hit home his domestic policy agenda and encourage the graduates to change their communities for the better.

“I love you!” a voice rose from the audience as the President settled at the podium.

“I love you back. That’s why I’m here,” he responded.

He continued in a light moment, drawing laughter from the audience: “I see some moms and grandmas here, aunts, in their Sunday best - although they are upset about their hair getting messed up. Michelle would not be sitting in the rain. She has taught me about hair.”

He concluded, “It will not be sufficient for Morehouse College, for any college, for that matter, to produce clever graduates… but rather honest men, men who can be trusted in public and private life - men who are sensitive to the wrongs, the sufferings, and the injustices of society and who are willing to accept responsibility for correcting [those] ills.”

He named great men who graduated from Morehouse and went on to become powerful and impactful leaders. Most are household names including Dr. King, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, entrepreneurial leader and educator Booker T. Washington, political scientist Ralph Bunche, writer Langston Hughes, inventor George Washington Carver, civil rights icon Ralph Abernathy, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson and film maker Spike Lee.

“These men were many things to many people.  And they knew full well the role that racism played in their lives.  But when it came to their own accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses,” the President said. “That’s what we’ve come to expect from you, Morehouse - a legacy of leaders - not just in our Black community, but for the entire American community. “

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the The Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A report by Bloomberg Rankings ranks the New Orleans area, in­cluding neighbors Metairie and Kenner, as No. 2 on a list of “Top 12 American Boomtowns.”

The list is a ranking of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. between 2007 and 2011 based on census data for metropolitan areas combed through by Bloomberg Rankings. The group used the data to identify areas with population growth, then “scored areas on growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation,” an article about the list on Bloomberg.com said.

“It’s a reaffirmation of the pro­gress we’re seeing on the ground,” said New Orleans Mayor Lan­drieu’s spokesperson Ryan Berni. “The city is being physically rebuilt from streets to libraries to parks to community centers. Neighborhoods are being revitalized. New companies are moving in. Retail is finally coming back and in a big way.”

Once the two scores were combined, the list was sifted down to regions with more than one million residents in order to identify the nation’s fastest-growing cities.

The New Orleans area reportedly had the largest population growth among U.S. regions from 2007 to 2011. The region saw growth in population from 1,030,363 in 2007 to 1,191,089 in 2011 — a 15.6 percent increase, the data shows, and a GDP compound annual growth of two percent.

As the area continues to rebuild from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including reconstruction of damaged homes and businesses, there has been a surge in heavy construction jobs according to Allison Plyer of GNOCDC.

These construction jobs as well as jobs created through the relocation of large companies to the area such as General Electric have been a boon that has the area’s unemployment rate at 5.9 percent, which is below the national average.

“Just in the past 10 days, we have celebrated a string of major wins all across New Orleans from opening the GE Capital Technology Center, which will bring 300 high-paying, high-tech jobs, to breaking ground on the new Walmart in New Orleans East to reopening the Tremé Center,” said Berni. “And next week, we’ll have additional ribbon cuttings and we’ll break ground on the Broad ReFresh project which is bringing a Whole Foods to Broad Street thanks to the City’s Fresh Food Retailer Initiative.”

In 2012, the New Orleans area’s population rose to 1.2 million, the data shows.