The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?
A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis after 75 years of prohibition was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities. But efforts to help those most affected participate in the newly legal sector have been halting.
Lessons for Cities from Seattle’s Racial and Social Justice Law
Seattle is marking the first anniversary of its landmark Race and Social Justice Initiative ordinance. Signed into law in April 2023, the ordinance highlights race and racism because of the pervasive inequities experienced by people of color
Don’t Shoot Portland, University of Oregon Team Up for Black Narratives, Memory
The yearly Memory Work for Black Lives Plenary shows the power of preservation.
Grants Pass Anti-Camping Laws Head to Supreme Court
Grants Pass in southern Oregon has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled for April 22. The case has broad implications for cities, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. Since 2020, court orders have barred Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping laws. Now, the city is asking the justices to review lower court rulings it says has prevented it from addressing the city's homelessness crisis. Rights groups say people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing.
Mt. Tabor Park Selected for National Initiative
Mt. Tabor Park is the only Oregon park and one of just 24 nationally to receive honor. ...
OHCS, BuildUp Oregon Launch Program to Expand Early Childhood Education Access Statewide
Funds include million for developing early care and education facilities co-located with affordable housing. ...
Governor Kotek Announces Chief of Staff, New Office Leadership
Governor expands executive team and names new Housing and Homelessness Initiative Director ...
Governor Kotek Announces Investment in New CHIPS Child Care Fund
5 Million dollars from Oregon CHIPS Act to be allocated to new Child Care Fund ...
Minnesota and other Democratic-led states lead pushback on censorship. They're banning the book ban
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A movement to ban book bans is gaining steam in Minnesota and several other states, in contrast to the trend playing out in more conservative states where book challenges have soared to their highest levels in decades. As a queer and out youth, Shae Ross is...
US advances review of Nevada lithium mine amid concerns over endangered wildflower
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Biden administration has taken a significant step in its expedited environmental review of what could become the third lithium mine in the U.S., amid anticipated legal challenges from conservationists over the threat they say it poses to an endangered Nevada wildflower. ...
Missouri hires Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch for the same role with the Tigers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri hired longtime college administrator Laird Veatch to be its athletic director on Tuesday, bringing him back to campus 14 years after he departed for a series of other positions that culminated with five years spent as the AD at Memphis. Veatch...
KC Current owners announce plans for stadium district along the Kansas City riverfront
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The ownership group of the Kansas City Current announced plans Monday for the development of the Missouri River waterfront, where the club recently opened a purpose-built stadium for the National Women's Soccer League team. CPKC Stadium will serve as the hub...
Op-Ed: Why MAGA Policies Are Detrimental to Black Communities
NNPA NEWSWIRE – MAGA proponents peddle baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to justify voter suppression tactics that disproportionately target Black voters. From restrictive voter ID laws to purging voter rolls to limiting early voting hours, these...
Loving and Embracing the Differences in Our Youngest Learners
Yet our responsibility to all parents and society at large means we must do more to share insights, especially with underserved and under-resourced communities. ...
Gallup Finds Black Generational Divide on Affirmative Action
Each spring, many aspiring students and their families begin receiving college acceptance letters and offers of financial aid packages. This year’s college decisions will add yet another consideration: the effects of a 2023 Supreme Court, 6-3 ruling that...
OP-ED: Embracing Black Men’s Voices: Rebuilding Trust and Unity in the Democratic Party
The decision of many Black men to disengage from the Democratic Party is rooted in a complex interplay of historical disenchantment, unmet promises, and a sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. ...
William Strickland, a longtime civil rights activist, scholar and friend of Malcolm X, has died
BOSTON (AP) — William Strickland, a longtime civil rights activist and supporter of the Black Power movement who worked with Malcolm X and other prominent leaders in the 1960s, has died. He was 87. Strickland, whose death April 10 was confirmed by a relative, first became active in...
Biden will speak at Morehouse commencement, an election-year spotlight in front of Black voters
ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a key election-year spotlight on one of the nation’s preeminent historically Black campuses as he works to shore up the racially diverse coalition that propelled him to the...
Minnesota and other Democratic-led states lead pushback on censorship. They're banning the book ban
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A movement to ban book bans is gaining steam in Minnesota and several other states, in contrast to the trend playing out in more conservative states where book challenges have soared to their highest levels in decades. As a queer and out youth, Shae Ross is...
What to stream this weekend: Conan O’Brien travels, 'Migration' soars and Taylor Swift reigns
Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” landing on Netflix and Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” album are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as...
Music Review: Jazz pianist Fred Hersch creates subdued, lovely colors on 'Silent, Listening'
Jazz pianist Fred Hersch fully embraces the freedom that comes with improvisation on his solo album “Silent, Listening,” spontaneously composing and performing tunes that are often without melody, meter or form. Listening to them can be challenging and rewarding. The many-time...
Book Review: 'Nothing But the Bones' is a compelling noir novel at a breakneck pace
Nelson “Nails” McKenna isn’t very bright, stumbles over his words and often says what he’s thinking without realizing it. We first meet him as a boy reading a superhero comic on the banks of a river in his backcountry hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia....
From pop to politics, what to know as Sweden prepares for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest
LONDON (AP) — It’s springtime in Europe — time for the annual blossoming of spectacle and sound known as the...
The Latest | Pecker says he wanted to keep tabloid's agreement with Trump 'as quiet as possible'
NEW YORK (AP) — Veteran tabloid publisher David Pecker returned to the witness stand in Donald Trump’s hush...
Haiti health system nears collapse as medicine dwindles, gangs attack hospitals and ports stay shut
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — On a recent morning at a hospital in the heart of gang territory in Haiti’s...
2 Malaysian military helicopters collide and crash while training, killing all 10 crew
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Two Malaysian military helicopters collided midair and crashed during a training...
In Vietnam, farmers reduce methane emissions by changing how they grow rice
LONG AN, Vietnam (AP) — There is one thing that distinguishes 60-year-old Vo Van Van’s rice fields from a...
The US is expected to block aid to an Israeli military unit. What is Leahy law that it would cite?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel expects its top ally, the United States, to announce as soon as Monday that it's...
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is anticipating a Trump win in November. Or, at least, he is preparing for it. He says that if Republicans hold sway in the White House, the House and the Senate, he plans to use budget reconciliation to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) and give tax cuts to the wealthy. Ryan says he will not even attempt any bipartisanship, as he shoves his regressive agenda down the throats of our people. Instead, he says that he can make it work, especially if he has a Trump White House.
This is, perhaps, why Republicans who appear to have at least a little bit of good sense are going for Trump’s nonsense. They know that Mr. Trump, with his head in the cloud and his rhetoric in the gutter, will let them get away with anything they want. He will agree to their tax cuts, because they coincide with his agenda to reward the wealthy. Trump will go along with cuts to Obamacare, because he wasn’t loving it in the first place. He will let conservative Republicans hold sway, especially if they reward him with their votes in November.
Paul Ryan calls his plan a “Better Way” policy agenda. It is an aggressive move that assumes that Republicans will control both the House and the Senate. They might not – if people vote, and vote down ballot, there is a real chance that Democrats can control the Senate. The House is a much bigger challenge, and it is likely that Republicans will continue to hold sway in the house. But there are too many folks who say they won’t vote, and their votes could make a real difference. In Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida (among other states), those who choose to refrain from voting are really voting for a Trump-Ryan agenda.
The attack on Obamacare is especially problematic. While the President’s Affordable Care Act is clearly flawed, it expanded health insurance for more than 20 million people. It isn’t the desired single payer care, but it provides opportunity and takes the first step in expanding the social contract since the Roosevelt years. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) can be used as a foundation to expand health insurance coverage and, in my mind, get us closer to the ultimate goal of a single-payer system. But legislators rejected the single-payer plan that Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Ma) proposed for decades. The Affordable Care Act is a compromise. We need to move forward in improving the ACA, not backward in repealing it. Trump and Ryan would restrict access to health care instead of expanding it.
According to Politico, Paul Ryan thinks that a divided government contributes to gridlock. He’d be happy if the presidency, the House of Representatives, and the United States Senate were all controlled by Republicans. What about the rest of us? Does he see our voice in this? Not according to Ryan. He tells Politico “I’m tired of divided government. It doesn’t work very well.” He seems to ignore the fact that there are legitimate differences among legislators and that these differences need to be worked out. He is uninterested in compromise. Instead, he wants to shove his position down the throats of other people.
Paul Ryan has explicitly called Donald Trump a racist. He has eschewed many of his policies. Other Republicans have been openly repulsed by their bellicose standard bearer and disturbed by his racist bluster and his wacky rhetoric, but they have thrown their discernment to the wind, embracing the man they have described as a rabid racist, because they prefer him to an embrace of integrity.
As we count down to the November 8 election, people are coming forward to say they are either undecided, conflicted, or would rather vote for a third party candidate, because they can’t tolerate Clinton Trump. The bottom line is that either Clinton or Trump will win the Presidency. Really. Those Republicans who support Trump are openly supporting evil. They will dance with the devil to their detriment.
African Americans, especially, need to look at what Trump has promised. He has promised discrimination. He has described our lives as hell. He has been a bully and a documented discriminator. He has been too much. He should be enough to repel us. Paul Ryan has called Trump a racist, but he is willing to dance with the devil because it serves his purposes. What about you?
Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy” is available via www.amazon.com for booking, wholesale inquiries or for more info visit www.juliannemalveaux.com.