Among $514 million that Democrats spent on political consultants during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, only $8.7 million (just 1.7 percent) went to minorities, according to a June 2014 study by Democratic minority advocacy firm PowerPAC+. Seventeen companies, among 287 approved consulting firms, were minority-owned — or just 5.9 percent.

The report fueled existing anxiety within the African-American community over whether Democrats truly have black people’s best interests at heart. Although 56 percent of blacks thought the party had become more representative of minorities in recent years, 35 percent disagreed, as a Kaiser Family Foundation/CNN survey discovered last November.

“Democrats are wasting millions of dollars chasing after white swing voters instead of investing the money in engaging communities of color,” said Steve Phillips, founder and chairman of PowerPAC+. The company could partner with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Phillips said. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee already has made reforms based on the study.

America’s population is 13.2-percent black, according to 2014 Census Bureau estimates, but African-American voters are expected to play an outsized role in November’s elections. Eighty percent of black voters are Democrats. Only 11 percent are Republicans.

Some consulting firms repeatedly prosper. Event Transportation Associates, the go-to transit service for the past two Democratic conventions, seems poised to thrive again this year and partner with diverse local vendors.

The company, which did not reply to repeated requests for comment, last month announced its preparations for the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Janie Hollingsworth, the company’s CEO and majority owner, co-chaired the 2012 convention’s transportation subcommittee, according to her LinkedIn profile. Hollingsworth also provided logistical expertise for Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia last year.

The Democratic National Convention Committee declined comment on the company or Hollingsworth, citing sensitive contract negotiations. The committee instead offered a statement by its CEO, the Rev. Leah Daughtry.

“It is an article of faith for us that we ought to allow the people who move our party forward to be able to be beneficiaries of the party’s resources,” Daughtry said.

But Vectour Transportation Group, a 2012 convention contractor, lost its bid to return.

“Things did not go exactly how we would have liked for them to go this year,” said Reggie Halsam, the black-owned company’s CEO.

Internal Democratic National Committee statistics show that in 2015, women composed 48 percent of its staff, and nearly 36 percent of its employees were minorities. Also, 23 percent of contracts and 25 percent of total dollars spent that year went to minority-owned enterprises. Twelve percent were African-American owned, representing 14 percent of the total dollars spent.

“As for vendors, we have an unprecedented goal of awarding 35 percent of our contracts to diverse companies,” said convention committee spokesman Lee Whack.

Two African-American-owned firms are among five major contracts the Democrats’ convention committee granted to minority businesses. There are 500 diverse suppliers and vendors registered to do business with the DNC and other Democratic entities.

Cornell Belcher, president of Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies, said the party’s real power and spending are centered in the congressional and senatorial committees, the Democratic Governors Association, and EMILY’s list, where Belcher once worked.

Groups like EMILY’s List (which supports pro-choice Democratic female candidates) face zero scrutiny and accountability, Belcher said.

Meanwhile, Republicans hope to erode black support for Democrats.

However, the Republican National Committee, which announced in 2013 that it would spend $10 million on minority outreach, did not respond to requests to analyze its own internal and vendor-diversity statistics.

Telly Lovelace, the GOP committee’s director for African-American Initiatives & Urban Media, instead spoke of its grassroots-level training efforts to engage the black community, including African-American operatives placed in seven battleground states, and plans to boost hiring into the fall.

Despite several notable departures among minority staffers in recent months, Lovelace denied the Republican headquarters is experiencing a so-called “black exodus.”

Kirsten Kukowski, the committee’s communications director, said organizers are working with more than a dozen minority-owned vendors and have several staffers conducting community outreach.

Richard Dickerson, a Democratic campaign operative, said an important conversation about money and influence needs to occur, because the people who run Democratic campaigns end up in senior government positions.

“They’re going to spend a billion dollars,” Dickerson said. “Ten percent of that is $100 million. If you put $100 million into the black community, you can see it.”

Peterson is a reporter for Urban News Service.

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“The American people are sick of silence,” said Rep. Janice Hahn, D-San Pedro. “They are demanding that Congress take action and protect their families. This nation has just witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in history and more people are dying every day. If we do not take action now, when will we?

“Inaction is tantamount to being complicit in the next attack,” she said. “I cannot stand for that.”

The sit-in was led by Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, who walked into the House chamber before noon and was joined by four dozen other Democrats who vowed to continue the sit-in until Republicans moved forward with a vote on gun-control legislation.

Democrats are pushing for legislation known as the “no fly, no buy” bill, barring people on the national no-fly list from being able to purchase guns.

The sit-in gained the attention of the White House, with President Barack Obama posting on Twitter, “Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most.”

The action, however, did not appear likely to sway Republicans to vote on the issue.

AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, issued a statement saying, “The House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution, so the House has recessed subject to the call of the chair.”

Democrats in the U.S. Senate staged a filibuster last week to push for a vote on gun legislation. Senators eventually held votes June 20 on four pieces of proposed legislation, all of which failed.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, was among those taking part in the sit-in, saying at one point that Republicans “don’t have the guts” to take on the “gun lobby.”

Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, also joined the protest, along with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank.

Schiff announced his participation on Twitter, using the hashtags #EnoughIsEnough and #NoBillNoBreak.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Los Angeles, applauded the sit-in and said he was honored to take part.

“Since the Orlando massacre, the worst mass shooting in our history, 500 more Americans have been the victims of gun violence,” Lieu said. “Enough is enough.”

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Cosby, 78, could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of aggravated indecent assault for the alleged attack on Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, in January 2004.

Prosecutors allege Cosby plied Constand with drugs and wine, but Cosby has denied any wrongdoing and said the encounter was consensual.

The decision ordering Cosby to stand trial was no surprise to Carl Douglas, an attorney for 36 years who worked with Johnnie Cochran on the O.J. Simpson case.

But it will be much harder to convict Cosby in a regular trial, Douglas said.

“Under the law, a trial is warranted if there is a suspicion of wrongdoing,” he said, adding comments by a detective who interviewed the defendant and her comments were enough to cause suspicion.

“But it is harder to find a person guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on just suspicion,” Douglas said.

He said Cosby’s fame could work for him or against him in the trial.

“There is always more interest in a case where the person is well known. Often the past reputation of a suspect is a deciding factor.”

He noted that Cosby’s reputation as America’s dad has been diminished, but still may stand with some jurors.

“On the other hand, Mike Tyson’s past reputation would go against him in a case,” said Douglas referring to the boxer.

He added: “Cosby’s reputation might make it harder to find a juror who has not made up his mind.”

As a defense attorney, Douglas speculated that lawyers for Cosby would focus on the accuser’s conduct.

The woman did not report the incident immediately and was reported to have had personal contact with Cosby after the incident, allegedly calling him for tickets to his television show and asking advice.

Gloria Allred, who represents Constand, called the judge’s ruling “fair” and said she was looking forward to the trial.

She took issue with the argument of Cosby’s defense team that Constand “didn’t say ‘no.’”

“The argument of the prosecution is that if a victim is incapacitated for any reason, in this case perhaps the pills that Mr. Cosby admitted in his police report that he gave to Ms. Constand, and her ingestion of some wine at the same time and the fact she had not had food, rendered her — according to Ms. Constand — in a state where she was going in and out of consciousness,” Allred told reporters in Pennsylvania.

“She was aware that some things were happening, for example, her legs were paralyzed, she could also feel — according to her statement — that Mr. Cosby was touching her breasts … but that she could not say no.”

In addition to Constand, Allred represents nearly three dozen women who have accused Cosby of drugging and assaulting them, in some cases dating back decades. Among her clients is Judy Huth, who claims the comedian sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion in 1974 when she was 15 years old. Huth’s lawsuit is pending before a judge in Santa Monica.

Attorney Lisa Bloom — who is Allred’s daughter — represents former supermodel Janice Dickinson, who is suing Cosby for defamation. Dickinson claims she has been re-victimized and her reputation has suffered because of denials by his then-lawyer, Martin Singer, of her allegations that the comedian drugged and raped her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room more than 30 years ago.

“We are delighted by the decision in Pennsylvania today requiring Bill Cosby to stand trial for felony indecent assault,” Bloom said. “Women all over the country have fought against great odds to bring Mr. Cosby to trial, as we have. Mr. Cosby is entitled to a fair trial and so are the more than 50 women who have now accused him of sexual misconduct.”

Staff writer Arnold Adler contributed to this story.

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“War Room,” the mainstream, prayer-themed film starring unknown black actors, dethroned the hit biopic, “Straight Outta Compton,” at the box office over Labor Day weekend.

But that was no fluke. Black Christian entertainment has been broadening its appeal for years.

Veteran entertainment journalist Jawn Murray, who powers his own popular lifestyle website, AlwaysAList.com, credits Oprah Winfrey’s talk show for this new gateway of opportunity for black entertainers.

“I think Oprah Winfrey kind of got the ball rolling when she would give platforms to artists like BeBe and CeCe [Winans] and Donnie McClurkin and other prominent faith-based artists,” Murray said. “And then we saw people like Bishop T.D. Jakes and Tyler Perry launch faith-based film projects that were very lucrative.”

Tyler Perry’s first film, “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” released in 2005, starring Kimberly Elise, Shemar Moore and Perry as the grandma-esque Madea, topped the box office with nearly $22 million in its first weekend on just a $5.5-million budget, on its way to over $50 million.

Perry’s 2009 film, “I Can Do Bad All By Myself,”starring Taraji P. Henson, topped the box office opening weekend with $23 million and also passed the $50-million mark. Video sales added another $20 million on a production budget estimated at between $13 million and $19 million.

T.D. Jakes’s 2004 film, “Woman Thou Art Loosed” — starring Elise and Jakes, himself, as a pastor exploring the devastating effects of sexual molestation — generated $2.5 million in a limited release on its opening weekend, on its way to nearly $7 million overall.

“How did it wind up in the top 10 on a weekend where we had “Shark Tale” opening?” box office expert Paul Dergarabedian asked about this unexpected success.

“Not Easily Broken,” about a disintegrating marriage with God as a subtle, but important, influence, starring Henson and Morris Chestnut, grossed more than $10 million and added $15 million via home entertainment — five times its initial budget.

“We are seeing it also transfer over to the television realm.” Murray said. ”You have networks like UP and TV One doing lots of original, faith-based content with movies and sitcoms.”

UP produced several TV films through its one-time Faith and Family Screenplay Competition at the American Black Film Festival, including “Comeback Dad” (2014) with Charles Dutton and Tatyana Ali and “Somebody’s Child”(2012) starring Lynn Whitfield and Michael Jai White.

Now, at TV One, former UP head Brad Siegel has greenlit films re-telling biblical stories such as that of Job with the recent “To Hell and Back,” with Vanessa Bell Calloway and Ernie Hudson, and last year’s “For the Love of Ruth,”starring Tyler Perry alum Denise Boutte, Gary Dourdan and Loretta Devine.

And Winfrey will unveil “Greenleaf,” a megachurch TV drama starring Lynn Whitfield and herself, on her OWN network this summer. Bounce TV has found success with gospel stars David and Tamela Mann’s sitcom “Mann & Wife” and the dark drama “Saints & Sinners,” which has broken audience records.

“They’re not the stereotypical church [fare],” Murray said. “Christians live real lives, so they’re real-life stories. They’re stories of relationships and infidelity. They’re stories of addiction and abuse. They’re stories of struggle and triumph. Whatever anybody is dealing with on a day-to-day basis, Christians and people of faith deal with that, too.”

Brett Dismuke, president and chief operating officer of the Atlanta-based production company The Swirl Group, which has created many black Christian TV projects, cites the popularity of gospel stage plays in the early 2000s as a major catalyst.

“When any play had any hint of the word in it, the playwright was allowed to come to churches and promote,” said Dismuke, a former stage-play producer whose company created “Saints and Sinners.” “So when you looked out at the audience of these plays that were touring the country, it was largely church congregations coming out en masse.”

Both “Woman Thou Art Loosed” and “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” began on stage.

Academy Award-winner Louis Gossett Jr., who plays a blind pastor in the recently wrapped independent, mainstream Christian film “The Reason,” says Christian entertainment is becoming more popular because “we have gotten our fill of dropping bombs and shooting people.”

The veteran actor — who also appeared as a bishop in Russ Parr’s 2012 black church drama “The Undershepherd”— believes the rise of black Christian entertainment is a good thing.

“We need to lead the way now,” Gossett says. “We have to be children of God.”

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Vice President Inonge Mutukwa Wina, the first woman to hold the post in Zambia’s history, was in South Los Angeles April 17 seeking partners to help develop the Jubilee Women’s Integrated Highway Markets in her home country and, by extension, helping thousands of roadside vendors.

Jubilee Highway Committee Chairperson Gladys Mutukwa told a reporter, “Each Zambian woman, on average, supports about five people. We are hoping to reach a million women and impact 6 million people or half the country’s population.”

Mutukwa said the roadside vendors currently support their families on $60 to $100 a month.

“They make subsistence — enough to look after their families,” she said. “In Zambia, like most of Africa, most of the households are headed by women. The men have died or gone off, but most of them are actually with us.”

“The new highway market system, when fully developed in three years, is expected to raise the income of Zambia’s women from about $1,200 annually to about $5,000 annually,” Mutukwa added.

“To provide for the family, women sell all types of wares, goods, vegetables — anything — on the street, in shelters prone to rain and unhygienic conditions,” Wina told an audience of entrepreneurs, operators of business development nonprofits, expatriates and the congregation at Holman United Methodist Church in South Los Angeles.

“Women are … finding a livelihood … to ensure there is food on the table. They have to make a living and they undergo all sorts of challenges,” she added.

Ten business hubs — one per province in Zambia — complete with child care, medical, sanitation and other services — will replace the open air, termed “illegal,’ flea markets where “women … eke out a living … under deplorable conditions with no road safety, limited water and sanitation, high losses of produce and piles of garbage around them,” Wina added.

“A woman has the power to change things for the better in this world. When you empower a woman, you empower a family a community and inevitably a nation.”

According to Mutukwa, “A Jubilee Highway Committee member is working on the African Growth and Opportunity Act in Zambia, but one or two women meeting an order is not possible.”

“We want to optimize … so we do not go on selling one or two things when we can sell a lot. The main idea is first for the marketers to link up … for a light order. With 15 members, [we] build the capacity to be able to meet a bigger order,” she added.

“We expect to stimulate growth in the economy and shift thinking of the marketers from poor sellers to entrepreneurs,” Robert Sichinga, Zambia’s acting honorary consul general, told The Wave.

“The biggest hurdle is financial support and partners,” Sichinga added. “That is the reason Vice President Wina made this trip — to find partners who would be interested in specific sectors as well as general financial support.”

Los Angeles was Wina’s only stop in the U.S. because of the strong passion for Zambia here and in California, Sichinga said.

Under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade agreement originally passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000, eligible sub-Saharan African countries receive duty-free access to U.S. markets in order to help diversify their exports to the U.S. and create jobs and expand their economies.

“Our goal is to start with building the Mulupusho Flagship market in the Chibombo and Chisamba Districts” [about 45–60 miles outside of Lusaka, the capital city] “in Zambia’s Central Province, and once it is off the ground, expand to the other provinces,” Sichinga said.

“When it is all said and done, you’ll have fully integrated market spaces,” he added.

“We have 2,500 women registered at this market,” Mutukwa said. “We want to set it up before the end of the year. We are at feasibility level and the initial cost is $5 million.”

The new business hub also will provide enhanced safety and security; food processing and storage; finance and banking opportunities; and literacy and skills training. Use of solar energy and bio-mass fuels is also planned.

Expatriates of the landlocked nation wore native dress and served Zambian fare on tabletops outfitted with African motif centerpieces at the reception for Wina. Although a native of Zambia, Wina spent some time in her youth in Southern California, graduating from Santa Monica High School and attending Santa Monica College before returning to Zambia, where she received a college degree.

Guests included former U.S. Rep. Diane Watson, L.A. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Kelli Bernard, and a representative of U.S. Rep. Karen Bass.

Zambia’s President Edgar Chagwa Lungu reportedly told Wina at her swearing in ceremony in 2015: “with your appointment, I expect that the gender agenda In Zambia will move forward.”

Wina stuck to that agenda on her local visit, telling prospective local partners: “We want participation of the young people — girls especially — in our countries to acquire their education, complete their colleges or universities, and start their own families, projects or businesses.”

“But, alas in Zambia, most of our young people will be married off at a young age. And at worse, this is a scourge that we will send those girls and their offspring into poverty because they will not be able to gain a skill to help them if they forge alone in life.”

“So the reason we are here is to meet partners … as we look at one aspect of empowering women through an integrated Jubilee Market Highway.”

More information on the Jubilee Market Highway can be obtained by contacting  jubileemarkets@gmail.com.

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Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Debre Katz Weintraub denied a motion by Cosby’s attorney, Christopher Tayback, to toss the allegations on grounds that former Cosby attorney Martin Singer expressed an opinion when he issued a Nov. 19, 2014, news release concerning Dickinson’s truthfulness.

Dickinson’s suit, filed May 20, 2015, alleges Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982 and later defamed her by falsely calling her a liar in two written statements Singer provided to the media on consecutive days in November 2014.

The complaint alleges defamation, false light invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The judge said Singer never investigated Dickinson’s allegations sufficiently before concluding she was lying. She said that before penning the statement, Singer should have consulted “the most direct source: Cosby himself.”

Cosby ratified Singer’s conduct by not saying anything about the press statement, Weintraub said.

The judge also said it was undisputed that both Cosby and Dickinson were celebrities. Dickinson’s lawyers established a framework for showing that Cosby knew or should have known that Singer’s statement that the plaintiff was lying about being raped was false, Weintraub said.

“A jury could infer malice in the face of Cosby’s silence,” the judge said.

The judge did find that a statement Singer gave the media the day before the Nov. 19 press statement was not defamatory. The judge said it was not a press statement, but instead a letter to two media members warning that Cosby could sue if Dickinson’s rape allegations against him were published. She said the Singer statements in that correspondence were protected speech.

Dickinson, 61, was present in court. Her attorney, Lisa Bloom, tweeted after the hearing, “Victory. Court rules we go to trial against Bill Cosby. Huge win for my client Janice Dickinson.”

Bloom said Singer is a sophisticated lawyer who could have crafted the Nov. 19 statement to avoid any defamatory context.

“He could have couched it as a statement of opinion if he wanted to,” Bloom said.

Tayback declined any immediate comment on whether his client will appeal.

Dickinson is one of dozens of women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them. Her suit alleges that Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1982 at a Lake Tahoe resort. The statute of limitations for a criminal case has expired.

Cosby, 78, previously fired Singer and replaced him with Tayback.

Dickinson’s lawyers sought without success to add Singer as a defendant in their client’s case.

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“We cannot allow our nation to be pitting groups of people against one another,” the former secretary of state and first lady said at the USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center. “We cannot give in to panic and fear. That’s not in keeping with our values.”

A divisive approach “is not effective in protecting us, and it plays into the hands of terrorists who want nothing more than to intimidate and terrorize people, turn [us] against each other, which leads to radicalizing more people and creating even more problems for us,” she said.

Emphasizing the need for everyday people to play a role in combating terrorism, Clinton spoke about a taxi driver who unknowingly took three terrorist bombers to Belgium’s airport last week.

“This gentleman … heard about the attacks and immediately wondered whether the three passengers he had taken to the airport that day, who he thought were somewhat strange-acting, could have been involved,” she said. “What he did was reach out immediately to law enforcement and say, ‘I picked up these three men and I can tell you where I picked them up.’”

She said that taxi driver led police to a terrorist stronghold.

Clinton was greeted at USC by Mayor Eric Garcetti, who introduced her as, “in my opinion, the next president of the United States.”

In remarks during the roundtable discussion, Garcetti said, “As a global city, we reflect the world,” and noted that the group was assembled to talk about “a dangerous time, a worrying time, a difficult time.”

A string of terrorist attacks have occurred in recent months, including in Paris, San Bernardino, Lebanon, Turkey and West Africa.

Clinton echoed another speaker’s call for amplifying the voices of moderate Muslims, saying a bigger stage needs to be given to more even-keeled views amid discussions about terrorism.

“It’s become harder and harder for moderate, reasonable voices to be heard,” she said. “The way you get eyes or ears is to be provocative, even extreme — to say things that are going to draw attention.”

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said mosques — where members of the Muslim community gather — should not be viewed as “centers of radicalization,” but as “assets” in fighting terrorism.

Al-Marayati said reaching out to mosques and the Muslim community means that family members who are often the first to detect something has gone wrong with a relative will be readier to report it or intervene.

Increasingly, he said, “radicals are being told to detach” from their mosques and families.

“We have to see that American Muslims are part of the solution” and that terrorists are “nothing more than a mafia,” Al-Marayati said.

Clinton said she hopes roundtable discussions like the one at USC “will be replicated in many places.” She added that an analogy Al-Marayati made comparing terrorist groups to gangs could be useful for those who feel uncertain about what to do about terrorism and how to understand it.

“People who feel marginalized, left out, left behind want to join something,” she said. “L.A. has a long history of dealing with gangs and doing so more successfully than other cities in our country. And thinking about it in that way may give more Americans an understanding … there are many hats for us to take to counter violent extremism, to find more positive experiences, to empower, particularly, young people.”

The roundtable discussion — hastily arranged in the midst of a Clinton fundraising swing — came one day after Clinton used a speech at Stanford University to further outline her strategy for defeating the Islamic State group.

In a statement released in response to the roundtable, Republic National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the blame for the recent terrorist incidents should be placed on Clinton and President Barack Obama, who have been “wrong about ISIS at every turn, which has resulted in more attacks and a more
dangerous world.”

“From her failed Libya policy, to her support for the president’s hasty withdrawal from Iraq, to her failed online counter-terrorism program at the State Department, Hillary Clinton has backed policies that have enabled ISIS to grow into a global threat,” Priebus said.

“We need a president who will take a fundamentally different approach to defeat radical Islamic terrorists, not someone like Hillary Clinton who dangerously believes we ‘finally are where we need to be,’” Priebus said.

Clinton also appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and spoke at two fundraisers for her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in her ninth trip to the Los Angeles area since declaring her candidacy on April 12, 2015.

Clinton’s first fundraiser was a late-afternoon event at the Santa Monica home of Julia Franz and Chris Silbermann. Tickets cost $2,700, the maximum individual contribution under federal law to a candidate seeking a party’s presidential nomination, according to an invitation obtained by City News Service.

Individuals raising $10,000 for what the campaign is billing as a “Conversation with Hillary Rodham Clinton” were designated as co-hosts and received an invitation to a reception with fellow co-hosts and were able to have their pictures taken with Clinton.

Silbermann is a co-founder of the talent agency ICM Partners. Franz, his wife, has produced such television series as “State of Affairs,” “Men at Work” and “Made in Jersey.”

Following her appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Clinton spoke at an evening event at the Avalon Hollywood nightclub, which also included performances by the singers Estelle and Ben Harper. Hip-hop music magnate Russell Simmons served as master of ceremonies.

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“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published March 22.

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin – and then criminalizing both heavily – we could disrupt those communities,” said Ehrlichman, who died in 1999.

“We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news,” he added. “Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Ehrlichman’s comments – given to an author in 1994 – represent the first time the War on Drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House.

John Ehrlichman

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton said Ehrlichman’s comments proved what black people have believed for decades – the government was targeting them.

“This is a frightening confirmation of what many of us have been saying for years. That this was a real attempt by government to demonize and criminalize a race of people,” said Sharpton, president of the National Action Network.

“And when we would raise the questions over that targeting, we were accused of all kind of things, from harboring criminality to being un-American and trying to politicize a legitimate concern.”

In her 2010 book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” author Michelle Alexander argues that mass incarceration of black and brown men in America — starting in the 1960s and 70s — served as a way to blunt the advances of the civil rights movement while functioning as a system of racial control similar to how Jim Crow once operated.

Ehrlichman’s comments did not surface until recently when Baum remembered them while going back through old notes for the Harper’s story. His statements are a stark departure from Nixon’s public explanation for his first piece of legislation in the war on drugs, delivered to Congress in 1969, which framed it as a response to an increase in heroin addiction and the rising use of marijuana and hallucinogens by students.

President Richard Nixon

Ehrlichman served 18 months in prison after being convicted of conspiracy and perjury for his role in the Watergate scandal that toppled Nixon and sent many presidential aides to prison.

His recent comments surface during a marked shift in attitudes across the nation toward how to handle drug use – ranging from the legalization of marijuana in various states to White House candidates focusing heavily on treatment as an answer to New Hampshire’s heroin epidemic while they were campaigning across the state.

Baum said he had no reason to believe Ehrlichman was being dishonest and viewed his comments as “atonement” from a man long after his tumultuous run in the White House ended.

“I think Ehrlichman was waiting for someone to come and ask him. I think he felt bad about it. I think he had a lot to feel bad about, same with Egil Krogh, who was another Watergate guy.” Baum told CNN.

Baum interviewed Ehrlichman and others for his 1996 book “Smoke and Mirrors,” but said he left out the Ehrlichman comment from the book because it did not fit the narrative style focused on putting the readers in the middle of the backroom discussions themselves, without input from the author.

Baum equated Ehrlichman’s admission with traumatic war stories that often take decades for veterans to talk about and said it clearly took time for Ehrlichman and other Nixon aides he interviewed to candidly explain the war on drugs.

“These guys, they knew they’d done bad things and they were glad finally when it was no longer going to cost them anything to be able to talk about it, to atone for it.” Baum said. “Nobody goes in to public service, I don’t think, on either side of the political aisle, to be repressive, to be evil. They go in because they care about the country.”

Attempts to reach Ehrlichman’s family for comment were not immediately successful.

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Obama’s pick of Judge Merrick Garland for the vacant Supreme Court seat March 16 was an intriguing multi-layered move in his last great showdown with Republicans that comes at a time of volatile political upheaval.

His selection demonstrates cold-eyed calculation and represents a clear case of Obama calling the Republicans’ bluff after its leaders made clear they would refuse to consider his nominee whomever it turned out to be.

Garland’s elevation offers a new window into the state of Obama’s political philosophy in the twilight of a presidency that began in a burst of historic potential but has been constrained by the grueling struggle to govern in a polarized era.

The pick, a mild surprise, also seemed to hold up a mirror to the president’s nature. Obama billed himself as the picture of swashbuckling audacity at the beginning of his career but has often proven to be too centrist from some liberals’ tastes on issue from health care to anti-terrorism policy.

Rarely immune to the lofty gesture, Obama also aimed to make a profound statement about America’s political institutions and democracy itself at a time when a vicious election campaign distilled from years of raging partisan heat is tearing at them.

Though he did not mention Republican presidential front-runner Trump by name, Obama’s point was hardly subtle. The president argued that while the rules of politics in a rabble-rousing moment might be fraying, some things — like the nomination of a Supreme Court justice — are so vital that they should be above the partisan swamp.

“At a time when our politics are so polarized, at a time when norms and customs of political rhetoric and courtesy and comity are so often treated like they’re disposable — this is precisely the time when we should play it straight,” he said.

“Because our Supreme Court really is unique. It’s supposed to be above politics. It has to be. And it should stay that way,” said the president who once called out the justices in person over the Citizens United ruling on campaign finance during a State of the Union address.

“To suggest that someone as qualified and respected as Merrick Garland doesn’t even deserve a hearing, let alone an up-or-down vote, to join an institution as important as our Supreme Court,” Obama said, “that would be unprecedented.”

Calling the Senate’s bluff

Obama has admitted that he has sometimes fallen short on the theatrics of the presidency.

But he did not shirk on the stage management as he shepherded Garland into the spring-filled beauty of the White House Rose Garden, the venue for many symbolic and ceremonial presidential moments over the decades.

The president’s appearance validated one of the great truths of Washington — that when someone professes to be above the grubby political impulses of his rivals, he’s usually playing the game at a more sophisticated level himself.

In essence, Obama was signaling to the GOP that whatever political price there is to pay for their refusal to consider his pick, the bill is now due.

“In this sense, then, the president is calling the Republican Senate’s bluff,” said professor Thomas Keck, an expert on the Supreme Court and U.S. politics at Syracuse University.

“If the Senate’s leaders stick to their pledge not to consider or even meet with any Obama nominee, it will be clear that they are doing so solely for partisan reasons and not due to any concerns with the nominee’s qualifications or record.”

There was also another implicit political message for Republicans to digest. Obama could have chosen a more liberal, Democratic-base-pleasing nominee in an election year, but didn’t, disappointing some on the left of his party.

In the context of a campaign that could produce a mandate for a Democratic successor, Hillary Clinton, who has been dragged left by her own party, he seemed to be saying to Republican senators: take what I am offering or you may rue the day.

“President Obama is saying to the Senate Republicans, you can take my 63-year-old now or wait for President Hillary Clinton to bring up a 45-year-old in 10 months,” said CNN Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

In many ways, Garland is a case of cometh the political hour, cometh the man.

He has been passed over for previous spots on the court as apparently insufficiently historic or youthful, as Obama picked the first Hispanic on the bench in Sonia Sotomayor and then Elena Kagan, who could have decades left to exert her progressive legal outlook.

But the spectacularly conventional nature of Garland’s resume — from Harvard Law to distinguished and unblemished service in the Justice Department to the top appeals court in the land — that worked against him before suddenly became an asset.

So while Sotomayor satisfied his impulse to make history, his later picks of Kagan, his former solicitor general, and especially Garland show a streak of pragmatism often evident during his presidency.

A president hoping to make Republicans look bad for blocking his appointment could hardly have found anyone so objectively qualified to serve.

It didn’t hurt either that Garland had previously been confirmed by several sitting Republican senators when he was nominated by President Bill Clinton.

The picture of unquestioned merit was solidified when Garland took to the microphone in the Rose Garden. His voice cracked as he spoke of the “gift” of his nomination and his love for his family, his nation and the Constitution, coming across as the modest and personable antithesis of the scheming, agenda-driven vortex into which he had just stepped.

And now the Senate battle

Contrasting with Obama’s theatrics, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in his unspectacular style, put on a show of quiet defiance to stiffen the spine of his troops in swing state re-election contests who may not relish the fight ahead.

“It is a president’s constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court justice and it is the Senate’s constitutional right to act as a check on a president and withhold its consent,” McConnell said in his flat monotone, like a lawyer stating the facts of a case.

And McConnell, speaking from the Senate floor, showed the president that two can play the political game, reviving an old quote from Vice President Joe Biden.

“‘It would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is under way, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over,’” McConnell quoted his old Senate sparring partner from 1992.

Republicans trawling for White House hypocrisy might have also taken exception to Obama’s Rose Garden announcement itself, since Biden — a key player in obstructionist Supreme Court confirmation fights in the past, including his orchestration of the rejection of President Ronald Reagan pick Judge Robert Bork — stood alongside the president as he made his speech.

In some ways, Garland’s nomination is a poisoned chalice: it is highly likely that he won’t get a hearing and his chances of claiming late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat are questionable at best. There is no guarantee, for instance, that Hillary Clinton, if elected president, would renew his nomination, given pressure on her to demonstrate early progressive credentials by appointing a more clear-cut liberal.

That was why Garland’s comments about his nomination being “the greatest honor” of his life other than his marriage and the “greatest gift” other than the birth of his daughters were so striking.

They seemed to hint that even if he does not make it to the bench, Garland may view the fact that he was chosen at all as no small honor. Or he could be a man for whom the prize of the high court is so great that it is worth braving the political fire to come.

If Garland’s nomination does fail, he can go back to his job as top judge of America’s second-most prestigious bench — the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Thus, Obama will not have torched a less established judicial career, or burned a potential Supreme Court nominee likely to excite liberal ideologues, like Garland’s colleague Sri Srinivasan, who a future Democratic president may wish to put forward.

And while Washington seems resigned to a stalemate in which Garland is left in unconfirmable limbo, the White House may still hope that things could change.

Should November’s election produces a President Clinton — or even the unpredictable ideological prospect of a President Trump — some GOP senators could be tempted to cut their losses in a lame duck session of Congress and settle for the judge they know.

The post NEWS ANALYSIS: In the age of Trump, Obama embraces the conventional appeared first on Wave Newspapers.

“The fact of the matter is this is hateful. It is racist. It is bigoted. It is xenophobic. It represents a kind of Jim Crow with hairspray and a blue suit,” Brooks told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” “Let’s not underestimate what we’re dealing with. This is a very, very ugly moment in America.”

But Brooks said he doesn’t hold anything against Americans who support Trump.

“I don’t blame the people — American citizens — for their economic anxieties and a sense of desperation. The fact that their grasping at straws and they grasped onto a bigoted, demagogic billionaire speaks to their desperation, not necessarily his appeal or the strength of his platform,” he said.

CNN has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment, with no response.

Cornell Williams Brooks

The billionaire’s rallies have turned increasingly violent in the past week as supporters have clashed with protesters. Trump was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago over the weekend and was given a scare when a protester rushed the stage Saturday.

And a former Breitbart reporter filed an assault charge against Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, alleging he yanked her violently from Trump last Tuesday.

“The fact of the matter is he’s engaged in rhetoric that represents a kind of apologetics, if you will, of violence,” Brooks said.

The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina said Monday it is weighing whether to press charges against Trump for inciting a riot during that rally where the protester was sucker punched by a 78-year-old white man. Trump has said he is considering paying the legal fees for the supporter charged with assault.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks flatly rejected the premise of the investigation into Trump’s role in the violent altercation.

“It is the protesters and agitators who are in violation, not Mr. Trump or the campaign,” Hicks said Monday in a statement.

Hicks added that Trump’s speech was “extremely well thought out and well received” and instead focused on the role of protesters, who she said “in some cases … used foul language, screamed vulgarities and made obscene gestures, annoying the very well behaved audience.”

Brooks believes Trump’s behavior is “contemptible” but will “leave that for the prosecutors in North Carolina to determine.”

He added there “absolutely” is a racial aspect to business mogul’s increasingly violent rallies.

“When you call Mexicans rapists, when you use code words like ‘thug,’ where you suddenly can’t distance yourself from the Klan. The fact of the matter is we’ve been in this ugly movie before. In the 1920s the Klan combined an anti-immigrant sentiment in the country with a kind of un-American patriotism with a venue of Christianity,” Brooks said.

Blitzer pointed out that Trump eventually did disavow the Klu Klux Klan.

The post NAACP president calls Trump ‘Jim Crow with hairspray and a blue suit’ appeared first on Wave Newspapers.