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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

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland Urban News.Com and Cleveland area grassroots groups such as the Imperial Women Coalition, the Imperial Women, the Cleveland African-American Museum, Black on Black Crime, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party, the Oppressed People's Nation,the Joaquin Hicks Real People's Movement, the People's Forum, Occupy Cleveland, Revolution Books, the Family Connection Center, Organize Ohio, the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network, the Committee to Bring Home Jamela and Jamyla, the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, Ohio Family Rights and Cleveland Jobs With Justice will host an inner city grassroots debate on the Cleveland Public Schools 15 mill property tax levy that is on the November ballot on Thurs, August 30, 2012 from 6 pm-8:30 pm at the Lil Africa Recreation and Party Center, 6816 Superior Ave in Cleveland.

Under state law the predominantly Black school district is controlled by the mayor, currently Frank Jackson, who personally appoints members of the Cleveland Board of Education. (Editor's note: The 15 mill proposed schools property tax levy would cost the average Cleveland homeowner $300 more annually).

The contact persons for the event are Imperial Women Leader Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-659-0473 and Cleveland African American Museum Executive Director Frances Caldwell at the museum offices at 216-721-6555 .

State Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10) will moderate the debate set now between Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson, who publicly supports it, Grassroots and Educational Activist and Slated 2013 Cleveland Mayoral Candidate Donna Walker-Brown , and Kimberly Brown, an author, youth advocate and former Cleveland mayoral candidate who says she shall challenge Cleveland Ward 1 Councilman Terrell Pruitt for his seat next year.

Both Brown's are staunchly against the levy and will debate against it.

Panelists to pose questions during the debate include Imperial Women Coalition Member and Cleveland African-American Executive Director Frances Caldwell, Cleveland Jobs With Justice Executive Director Debbie Kline, Black on Black Crime Founder Art McKoy, Cleveland Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Nelson Sr., Educational Activist and Community Affiiate Mary Keith, Roz McCallister, a member of the Imperial Women and the leader of Ohio Family Rights, and Dr. Eugene Jordan an E. Cleveland dentist who leads the Underground Railroad and is the second vice president of the Cleveland NAACP.

Ernest Smith, leader of the Oppressed People's Nation, will talk briefly about the plight of young Black male public school students in fighting and surviving racism and steotyping.

Community activists have also invited Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge or her representative to update the grassroots committee on public education as to her role as a member of the congressional committee on public education, and Cleveland schools CEO Eric Gordon has been asked to participate in the debate or to simply attend to show his commitment to the Black and grassroots communities and Cleveland school children.

"The CEO needs to come to talk to inner city residents and community activists on the levy and his decisions on school and community matters, " said Caldwell, who is not only a spokesperson for Cleveland's Black museum but also a strong activist for Civil and human rights.

Also at the forum will be a discussion on the No Child Left Behind federal mandate for public schools and an overview of the Cleveland Municipal School District from the desegregation court order to mayoral control (by former Cleveland School Board Member Genevieve Mitchell).

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

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog. Com salute 16-year-old Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas (pictured), who is Black, and who won the gold metal in the women's individual gymnastics all around category on Thursday during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

Douglas topped silver medalist Viktoria Komova of Russia to take the metal, and she became the first African-American and the third consecutive American to win a gold metal in the individual all around competition.

She also led the U.S.A. women's team to a gold metal in the team all around competition.

In connection with her fame, a discussion in the Black community on her style, the-good-hair-bad-hair-thing took center stage too, and whether Douglas should have worn her hair down during the celebrated competition, rather than pulled-up and not permed to the hilt.

The teen Olympic sensation, who began gymnastics training at six years old, told the Huffington Post last week that her hair is just fine.

Douglas won the silver metal for the balance beam in the 2010 U.S. Junior National Championships and her part of the team gold metal at the 2010 Pan American Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico.

She won the gold metal also at the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastic Championship in Tokyo, Japan.

Watch the videos of Douglas winning first place for pretrials to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in gymnastics and a synopsis of her 2012  Olympic Games  performance at  www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

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

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

CINCINNATI, Ohio – On Friday, nine Cleveland-area physicians who provide health care to poor patients through the Medicaid program, and were blocked by state law from expressing their support for then-Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray (pictured) through campaign contributions to his 2010 race to retain his seat, won their appeal to the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Oh., which determined that the law violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

At issue were efforts by the physicians to block Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted from enforcing an Ohio statute, also known as a state law, that makes it a crime for Ohio attorney-general and county-prosecutor candidates to accept campaign contributions from physicians who serve Medicaid patients, a disproportionate number of whom are minority and poor.

Cordray lost the Ohio attorney general seat that he was appointed to in 2008 two years later to Republican Michael Dewine, a former Lt. Gov and prior U.S. Senator.

In Jan. Congress appointed him director of the United States Financial Protection Bureau, an agency initiated in 2011 by President Obama, who nominated him six months earlier.

Subodh Chandra, lead counsel for the physicians, who was a law director under former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell and this year lost the Democratic primary for Cuyahoga County prosecutor to former common pleas judge Tim McGinty, was elated on the victory for his clients, and the underprivileged affected by the controversial state law.

“The physicians are gratified that the appellate court affirmed their constitutional rights of free speech and association," said Chandra. "While they will never get back the rights they lost in the 2010 election, at least from now on, doctors and others will have their free-speech rights restored.”

The Sixth Circuit’s decision reverses the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Lavin, et al., vs. Husted.

The criminal statute at issue, Ohio Revised Code Section 3599.45, was adopted in 1978 and provides in relevant part that “no candidate for the office of attorney general or county prosecutor or such a candidate’s campaign committee shall knowingly accept any contribution from any Medicaid provider or from any person having an ownership interest in the provider.”

In its unanimous decision, the Sixth Circuit held that "the statute here restricts the First Amendment rights of nearly 100,000 Medicaid providers who do not commit fraud, based on an attenuated concern about a relative handful of providers who do."

The judicial appeals panel went on to say that "there is no avoiding the conclusion that the contribution ban set forth in § 3599.45 is not closely drawn.”

The court also observed that the state’s own statistics for 2009 show that there were nearly 100,000 Ohio Medicaid providers, and that that same year, “only 0.003% were implicated in Medicaid fraud.”