, 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.

Editorial by Johnette Jernigan, Cleveland Urban News.Com Reporter

As battle grounds are drawn here in the state of Ohio and voter turnout is anticipated to be high in a neck and neck race between President Barack Obama and republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, it is important to not only register new voters, but to also give disenfranchised voters accurate information on the right to vote.

Former offenders could be taking themselves out of the political process inadvertently due to misinformation. Knowledge is no doubt power, particularly when it pertains to voting in a close election.

Ohio is one of 13 states along with the District of Columbia that allows convicted felons to vote under state law, but if a  jail or prison term is part of the sentence, that right to vote in Ohio comes only after the completion of it.

The right to vote is a Civil Right and the denial of it because of a felony is  called felony voter disenfranchisement. Only Kentucky and West Virginia take it to the maximum and  have state laws that impose a life long disbarment of that right for a felony record, with even Kentucky now providing for a restoration process.

Once a a person convicted of a felony is released from physical incarceration, even if on post-release control, parole, on house-arrest or to a half-way house,  the eligibility to vote in Ohio kicks in, though felons must again register to vote in order to do so.

Any Ohioan being held in jail in a pretrial situation who wishes to exercise his or her right to vote can do so by absentee ballot, unless that person is incarcerated because of an unrelated felony conviction and will not be released before the upcoming election.

Two separate convictions of felony violations of Ohio’s election laws bars the offender from voting in Ohio in any manner under state law, the only exception to the right of felons to vote, except, as mentioned previously, while the felony offender is incarcerated.

Ohio voters must be 18-years of age,  a U.S. citizen, and a resident of the Ohio at least 30 days before the election at issue. And absent a stipulation by a probate court of incompetency to vote in a judicial order, mentally incompetent people that otherwise qualify retain the right to vote, at least in Ohio.

A pivotal state that determines presidents, Ohio has a stake in this year's presidential election. It is therefore important, and without reservation, that Ohioans have their voices heard through the power of the right to vote.

Reach Johnette Jernigan at jernj@aol.com.

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

LOS ANGELES, California-Rodney King (pictured), whose 1991 brutal and videotaped beating by a group of White Los Angeles policemen generated a week of costly riots that killed 55 people and heightened racial tensions across the country after a predominantly White jury acquitted the officers was found dead Sun. afternoon in his swimming pool in a home he shared with his fiancee in Rialto, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb. (Watch the video of the beating at www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) .

He was 47, and there was no evidence of foul play,  police said.

Famous for going off script from his lawyers and saying "can we all get along?" at a press conference calling for peace around the riots, King publicly admitted that he had alcohol and drug abuse problems.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor

CLEVELAND, Ohio-President Barack Obama (pictured first) gave Cleveland its proper respect and met briefly with about 10 grassroots volunteers and area movers and shakers on Thurs afternoon, moments before his 53 minute speech at the Cuyahoga Community College campus in Cleveland that drew over 1500 people.

Among the special guests that the president courted before his address to a capacity crowd at Tri-C were Congresswomen Marcia Fudge of Warrensville Hts.  (D-11), Betty Sutton (D-13) of Copley Township, and Toledo's Marcy Kaptor (D-9), ( all three pictured second, third and  fourth  respectively), and Blaine Griffin (pictured fifth), the director of the community relations board for the City of Cleveland and the highest ranking Black in the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party as its vice chairperson.

With his always appealing style and finesse, Obama reminded the audience of why voters catapulted him to president of the United States of America, and he stayed on task with highlights on key issues such as the economy, foreign policy, jobs, and research development.

The president took on Mitt Romney, a millionaire and the presidential nominee for the Republican Party, saying that Romney has not one substantive plan for reducing the country's financial deficit and creating more jobs for the American people, and that his economic recovery proposal would, in reality, create more debt.

"I haven't seen a single independent analysis that my opponent's economic plan would actually reduce the deficit, not one," said Obama. "Even analysts that might agree with parts of his economic theory don't believe that his plan would create more jobs in the short term."

The president said in almost an emergent tone that he and Romney have distinctively different political philosophies and suggested that Romney might even be irrational and possibly dangerous in how he views public policy matters.

"At stake is not simply a choice between two candidates or two political parties," the president said. "But between two paths for our country."

Under the George W. Bush presidential regime the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, and it was the failed economic policies of the Bush administration that drew the current recession, preached Obama.

"Over the last few decades the income of the top one percent grew by more that 275 percent to an average of 1.3 million a year and big financial institutions saw their profits soar, " said Obama. "But prosperity never trickled down to the middle class. From 2001 to 2008 we had the slowest job growth in half a century. The typical family saw their incomes halt."

He emphasized a campaign platform centered on core issues  such as "education, energy, innovation, infrastructure, and a tax code focused on American job creation and balanced deficit reduction."

And those that Obama gave special attention by gathering for a meet and greet session before his speech praised him, including Griffin and Fudge, Ohio's only Black congressperson.

"I enjoyed  meeting with the president and his speech, to me, was one of his best," said Griffin, 42, a rising star in the county's Democratic Party who caught the president's attention after inviting Black leaders to a meeting earlier last week to strengthen strategies to help the Obama campaign while a few members of Cleveland's Old Black Political Guard, like former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, were spearheading a meeting at the Cleveland Clinic as Democrats with Republican Ohio Gov John Kasich, a staunch Romney supporter.

Forbes, 81, and now a part time Cleveland attorney who resides much of the time with his wife in Florida, was not invited to the Obama meet session and is a longtime opportunist and insignificant old man, an Obama campaign official has said on condition of anonymity.

Fudge, whose 11th congressional district includes Cleveland's majority Black east side and its eastern suburbs, and beginning next year will also include a predominantly Black pocket of Akron and staggering parts of its Summit County suburbs, said that Obama hit the necessary points and that the president is moving the country in the right direction.

"Congresswoman Fudge believes that the president is on the right path to investing in education, rebuilding our infrastructure, and not causing the poor and middle class to suffer to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy," said Fudge spokesperson Belinda Prinz.

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