By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

WASHINGTON, D.C.-President Obama's sweeping healthcare law that was adopted by Congress in 2010 before a divided America was narrowly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday as passing constitutional muster with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, a former president George W. Bush appointee who wrote the landmark opinion on behalf of the court, casting the swing vote with the four liberal's of the nation's high court, two of them appointed by Obama  himself.

ObamaCare requires, among other mandates, that most Americans  that can afford it, hold heath insurance by 2014 or face a penalty.

Among other provisions, it also expands medicaid for some low income Americans, precludes insurance companies from dropping people because they have preexisting conditions, prevents them from charging women higher premiums than men, and lets children stay on the parents' insurance policy until the age of 26.

"The highest court in the land has now spoken and we will continue to implement the law," Obama said in a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com. "I didn't do it because I believed that it was good politics. I believe that it is good for the country. "

Obama said that the requirement to purchase health care insurance is fair because when people don't and they then appear as patients in hospital emergency rooms, the premiums go up for paying Americans, and he said that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney supported that provision when he was governor of Massachusetts.

Challenging the law dubbed the Affordability Care Act were 26 states, including Ohio, and a small business trade group, as well as a wealth of Republican congressional lawmakers.

Supporting it were mainly Democrats and their supporters like some unions, as well as a cadre of women, among others.

But the court said that the penalty for not getting insurance is a legitimate tax that Congress can legally impose. And in striking down a small portion of the law, the court dismantled the law's plan to extend medicaid insurance wide span, stipulating the expansion  only to the poor,  and saying that the U.S. government lacks authority to penalize states that don't participate in this aspect of the law by withholding its entire medicaid allotment.

"This is a victory for all Americans," said Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio's majority Black 11th congressional district (D-11), in a press release."In my district alone an estimated 7,000 children with preexisting health conditions can no longer be denied coverage by health insurers, thousands of seniors will receive medicare preventive services with no out-of-pocket co-pays or deductibles, and thousands of seniors on medicare will receive an average discount of $490 per person on the cost of prescription drugs."

State Rep. John Barnes Jr., a Cleveland Democrat,  said that he was pleased with the unprecedented court decision too.

"The decision represents the single most humanitarian effort of the 21st century because it responds to the tasks of the health needs for all of the American people," said Barnes.

Debbie Kline, who leads Cleveland Jobs With Justice, a union, faith based and community activist group with some 64 organizational affiliates, called the ruling "good for America."

Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, both conservatives, were the most watched on the decision as they were the most aggressive in questioning lawyers for the Obama administration on the controversial issue during oral arguments in March, and Roberts came through for the president, the first Black one for the United States of America.

The nation's nine-member high court is no doubt divided on the issue, voting 5 to 4 to uphold it with justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both appointed by Obama, among the liberal majority of four justices that joined Roberts to seal the deal.

Dissenting were the three conservative justices other than Roberts, including Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the court , veteran and scholar Anton Scalia, and Kennedy, often a swing vote.

Cleveland area community activist Valerie Robinson, 77, a retired Cleveland schools teacher, said ObamaCare has some good things but that she remains ambivalent because she believes that it places more of a burden on the American people then on the federal government.

Romney vowed to overturn ObamaCare if elected president and Republican lawmakers say they will begin efforts to repeal it beginning with a congressional vote on July 11.

Reach Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, ktcoleman8@aol.com and phone number: 216-932-3114.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

WASHINGTON, D.C. - By a vote of 255 for and 67 against that came along party lines, the U.S. House of Representatives moved Thurs. to hold America's first Black attorney general in contempt of Congress in a document dispute pertaining  to a bungled gun-tracking operation, and a majority of the Democrats walked out of the congressional chambers during the vote in a show of protest and solidarity .

Eric Holder (pictured), 61, is the first sitting attorney general and cabinet member to be held in contempt.

A former Superior Judge of the District of Columbia and prior United States Attorney, Holder was appointed to  U.S. attorney general by Obama when Obama took the reigns as the first Black president of the United States in 2009.

He was also a member of Obama's vice presidential selection committee.

Republicans that pushed the contempt citation argue that Holder withheld documents that give reasons why the Obama administration initially took the position that  gun walking tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious, which permits guns to be smuggled from Arizona to Mexico, are not risky.

Holder called the contempt action "a political stunt."

President Barack Obama's administration has argued that the records, allegedly some140,000 pages, are privileged because they are part of the executive branch's deliberative .

He claims that the controversial records are therefore immune to congressional scrutiny under the separation of powers.

The criminal contempt vote hands the issue to the U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is under Holder's command.

A separate and distinct vote on civil contempt, which paves the way for the House to ask a court of competent jurisdiction to order Holder to hand over the requested documents, was undertaken by the House too.

Both votes came down the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld the president's sweeping health care mandate.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

COLUMBUS, Ohio-With the help of Republican Gov. John Kasich (pictured), who went from initially having no Blacks in his cabinet to championing some Black causes, Ohio state Sen. Shirley Smith (D-22) (pictured) finally got the Republican controlled Ohio State Legislature to pass a state law that gives Ohio state and federal sentencing judges the extent of discretion to seal non-violent criminal records of a single felony conviction, and one additional misdemeanor conviction if applied for, or two misdemeanor convictions.

An amendment to the previous record sealing statute that allowed Ohio state and federal trial court judges to seal one and not two criminal convictions, either a misdemeanor or felony,  and with a requirement that the person has only one criminal record aside from traffic citations and minor misdemeanors, Senate Bill 337 was signed into law by Kasich on Tues., after passing the state legislature.

The new law lets people with several criminal convictions minimize at least two with a judge's approval, and makes possession of marijuana paraphernalia a minor misdemeanor since possession of the drug itself under state law is a minor misdemeanor, Smith's office said by telephone Wed. afternoon.  And it clogs a loop hole in Ohio's Administrative Code that conflicts with a state law to stop the release of  juvenile court  records absent a court order or convictions of extremely serious juvenile crimes like murder.

Smith is a Cleveland Democrat and one of two Black state senators representing the Cleveland metropolitan state legislative districts along with state Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), also a Cleveland Democrat.

She co-sponsored the legislation, and Kasich bucked some conservative Republicans saying when he took office last year that legal system reform is among his political agendas.

The law, which the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, applauded in an editorial,  has other amenities, and  gives more leniency for felons seeking occupational licenses for jobs such as barber and beautician.

It also eases the strain of unemployment with a provision for qualifying felons to secure written recommendations of good standing for potential employers, all of this not applicable though for certain positions that preclude felons under state law from employment such as public school teacher, police officer and other positions of public authority and trust.

A controversial governor whom Civil Rights groups like the Cleveland Chapter SCLC and its leaders the Rev E. T. Caviness and Community Affiliate Marcia McKoy once picketed at the Statehouse in Columbus because he had not one Black in his cabinet, though he has two now, Kasich  gathered with a handful of elected Black officials and about 40 other Black leaders some three weeks ago at the Cleveland Clinic at the urging of former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes to brag of his bringing resources to Cleveland through the state budget such as the upcoming Glenville neighborhood  Eastside Market.

Research initiated by the Cleveland NAACP but ignored reveals that Blacks convicted of crimes in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, including felonies, get harsher sentences than similarly situated Whites for the same crimes.

Only three of those 34 judges are Black.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11) (pictured), a Warrensville Hts. Democrat, sent a formal written request to Republican Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted  (pictured) last week seeking the number of registered voters, organized by county, who have been removed or purged from Ohio voter rolls since 2008.

The letter comes as Democratic President Barack Obama is in a neck and neck race with Mitt Romney, the nominee for the Republican party and a former governor of Massachusetts.

Ohio is a battleground state and prominent Republicans and Democrats that have a stake in the presidential election are not sitting on the side lines.

“The purging of voter rolls is yet another attack on the right of Americans to select their leadership and representatives in the local, state and federal houses of our nation,” said  Fudge.  “As we move closer to the observance of Independence Day, it is critically important that we continue to ensure that every eligible American continues to enjoy the freedoms that led to the founding of this great country, and for which so many lost their lives.”

Fudge's aggression on the issue is in conjunction with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), a federal law enacted by Congress to help ensure that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained.

States are required to perform general voter record maintenance due to NVRA.

Husted's office issued instructions to the election boards on April 18 on how to conduct the general voter records maintenance program as required by law. But  Fudge said last week that the information was not maintained by the secretary’s office or readily available in its entirety.

The congresswoman's letter to Husted also asks that he comply with her request for exposure of those purged from voter rolls in Ohio by Oct. 9, the last day of registration before the November general election.

The removal of voters from rolls without adequate safeguards to ensure accuracy has become the norm in so many states from coast to coast, say Democrats like Fudge, Ohio's only Black congressperson.

Fudge is a fighter and data show that Obama likely needs her help to win reelection.  Her largely Black 11 th congressional district includes parts of the majority Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland and a Black pocket of Akron, Oh., a city some 35 miles south of Cleveland.

Though a federal legislator charged with making federal law as a member of Congress, Fudge has taken on state legislators and statewide office holders like Husted.

She voiced opposition to unsuccessful attempts by the mostly Republican Ohio state legislature to pass laws before this year's election to silence the Black and poor vote with more stringent voting requirements including slashing the time period for early voting.

A former speaker of the Ohio House, Husted won election to secretary of state in 2010 as part of a Republican sweep of statewide offices that include, among others, Democratic give ups of the attorney general's office,  and governor, an office previously held by the Democrat Ted Strickland, and now by John Kasich.

Both Kasich and Strickland are  former U.S. Reps. from Ohio.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.

, By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

MIAMI, Florida-Two years after leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers to join James Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami amid a spat with Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who is now part owner of the Horseshoe Casino, LeBron James (pictured) led the Miami Heat last night  to its second NBA championship with the Heat beating the Oklahoma City Thunder121-106 in the fifth game of the series finals.

“It’s about damn time,” said James after receiving his most valuable player trophy.

James, 27, scored 26 points Thurs. night  coupled with 13 assists and 11 rebounds.

The Heat lost the first game of the series but then won four in a roll to take the world basketball title. And James got the championship ring that he promised to get when he left Cleveland and angered many of his then adorable fans.

An Akron, Oh. native, James was drafted out of high school in the first round and played seven years with the Cavaliers before switching to the Miami Heat.

His departure became so controversial that at one point Civil Rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. stepped in and urged Gilbert to tone down his criticism of James, who accused the Cavaliers owner of disrespecting him as a Black man.

Not all Clevelanders are angry at the mega star.

"I support LeBron James and we wanted him to win that NBA championship ring," said Art McKoy, an East Cleveland, Oh. community activist.

Reach Cleveland Urban News. Com by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com and by telephone at 216-932-3114.