From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated a previously dismissed malicious prosecution and First Amendment lawsuit filed in federal court in 2010 by Community Activist and Cleveland Urban News.Com Publisher and Associate Editor Kathy Wray Coleman against Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals Judge Kathleen Ann Keough (pictured), the City of Cleveland, and several city officials and other alleged culprits.

The defendants also include former Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, Cleveland Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez, and assistant city prosecutors Joan Bascone and Lorraine Coyne, all of whom are White, though Coleman is Black.

Judge Donald Nugent, the presiding judge over the case from the Federal District Court of the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland, had dismissed the suit, ruling that Coleman had missed a single status conference after her then attorney Wayne Kerek withdrew from the case.

That so-called scheduled conference, wrote Coleman in her successful brief on appeal, never really was set with any notice to her, and she was never given "prior notice of potential dismissal of the case before the dismissal as mandated by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."

In reinstating the lawsuit the panel of judges of the Sixth Circuit said that Nugent abused his discretion by throwing out the case without prior notice and an opportunity to respond and possibly cure any defect.

Now back before Nugent, the suit is pending for further court proceedings, including a possible jury trial.

"Free speech is not always free because one must often pay a price for it and Blacks, women and the little people truly have a difficult time getting fair court proceedings to seek redress for statutory and constitutional wrongs in state and federal courts that serve the politically corrupt Cuyahoga County," said Coleman, who acted as her own attorney for the successful appeal but says she is now searching for representative counsel to prosecute the case. "We want this case heard on the merits at a public trial and we call for an investigation of the number of credible Civil Rights lawsuits filed by Blacks, women, activists, journalists and others that have been dismissed erroneously by Judge Nugent and other federal and state court judges of Ohio for the establishment."

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-California Attorney General Kamala Harris (pictured), the first Black to win a statewide election there, flew to Cleveland from San Francisco last week to thank Obama campaign volunteers, and to warn Blacks that Mitt Romney's proposed tax plan is what she dubs elitist and hostile to middle class Americans and the Black community, particularly in comparison to the tax platform the president offers.

"The president has created jobs outside of the corporate tax policy and wants tax reform, and Mitt Romney wants to raise taxes on the middle class, cut taxes for the richest Americans, and eliminate cuts to college tuition." said Harris, who added that she is African American and proud of it, a comment that came after Cleveland Urban News.Com asked what nationality she claims, given that she is Black and of Chinese and Indian American descent.

Labeled the female Obama by some of her admirers, and possibly by her political foes,  Harris said that Romney, the presumptive nominee for president for the Republican Party, wants middle class Americans to bear the brunt of the fallout from the failed economic policies of the George W. Bush administration.

Obama's tax  plan, she says, is not deficit driven as is Romney's, and it stops the Bush tax cuts and keeps tax cuts in place for middle and working class people.

Volunteers at Obama's campaign office at the Shaker Square location in the majority Black city of Cleveland were elated that Harris thought enough of their public service to stop through and say thanks.

"Attorney General Kamala Harris laid out the stark contrast between President Obama and Mitt Romney, especially when it comes to building an economy from the middle out rather than the top down," said Frances Hunter, a volunteer with the Obama for America Campaign. "Like President Obama, I believe that we can no longer ask everything from the middle class and seniors like myself while asking nothing from  the top, and it is not fair that folks like me pay a higher tax rate than millionaires and billionaires like Mitt Romney.'"

From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-The Rev. Al Sharpton was in Cleveland, Oh. today to push voter registration at a prominent Black church, to stomp for President Obama, and to talk on voter suppression and other Civil Rights matters during a key presidential election year.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson,  state Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), state Rep. Sandra Williams (D-11), and Cuyahoga County Councilman Julian Rogers (D-10) were among the host of dignitaries that attended.

The luncheon event, held at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Cleveland, was sponsored by the Cuyahoga County Chapter of the National Action Network, which is led by Marcia McCoy as its president and the Rev. E. Theophilus Caviness, the executive director of the organization and the senior pastor of Greater Abyssinia.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney publicly announced his selection today of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan (pictured) as his vice-presidential running mate, quashing any speculation that a minority or woman would get the nod or, more notably, U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.

A native of Janesville, WI, Ryan, 42, and good looking, earned a bachelor's degree from Miami University in Ohio.

He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 and is a fiscal conservative who chairs the House Budget Committee.

Portman was on the short list but was not well known in Ohio or nationally, and was criticized by the Obama campaign during an interview with Cleveland Urban News.Com and Obama Campaign Manager David Axelrod as linked to the failed economic policies of the George W. Bush administration as Bush's chief adviser on the economy.

Ryan, on the other hand, helped embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker win a recall election in June, one pushed by the state's public sector unions, including the Wisconsin Education Association, the state teachers union connected to the National Education Association, a union that backs Democratic presidential candidates.

"On June 5 courage was on the ballot in Wisconsin and courage won," said Ryan during a speech on Romney 's announcement in which he thanked Wisconsin supporters and Walker, and spoke of his victory over recall.

The WEA and other Wisconsin unions were dismayed over a state law enacted by the Republican controlled Wisconsin State Legislature and supported by Walker that sharply curtails collective bargaining and takes away the right of unions to strike accordingly and to arbitrate most aspects of employee working conditions.

Ryan said also during his speech to Republican supporters that he and Romney would save Wisconsin from becoming a welfare state and that god and nature govern, apparently over laws and such things as the United States Constitution.

Ohio is a pivotal state for presidential elections and one where unions still have power.

Last year Ohio voters struck down Senate Bill 5, a now defunct state law passed earlier last year by the Republican controlled Ohio State Legislature that would have crippled the state's public sector unions, and precluded the power to strike for fair wages and working conditions, among other radical provisions.

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by telephone at 216-659-0473 and by email@ editor@clevelandurbannews.com