Florida Courier - October 3, 2014

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VOLUME 22 NO. 40

www.flcourier.com

OCTOBER 3 – OCTOBER 9, 2014

TWO DECADES OF DYSFUNCTION If Republican/Independent/Democrat Charlie Crist loses the governor’s race, Democrats will blame Black Floridians. The truth? Florida Democrats continue to run the same losing strategy that’s lost them the governor’s mansion for the past 20 years.

A survey says that newly minted Democrat Charlie Crist isn’t connecting with Black voters.

BY THE FLORIDA COURIER STAFF

The year: 1994. O.J. Simpson led cops on a slowspeed chase. Four men were convicted in the first World Trade Center bombing. Eighteen-year-old golfer Tiger Woods won his first Masters tournament. Entertainer Michael Jackson wed Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie. Susan Smith, a South Carolina housewife, drowned her two sons by strapping them into her SUV and driving into a lake. She then lied about it on national television and blamed an imaginary Black man for kidnapping her sons and killing them. Then-President Bill Clinton was as unpopular as President Obama is

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

PART 1

FLA DEMS

THE STATE OF THE PARTY

in some quarters today. On Oct. 16, 1994, the Miami Herald reported that less than 200 people turned out in Miami to see Bill and First Lady Hillary Clinton made a campaign appearance for Hillary’s brother Hugh Rodham, who was running for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat.

FLORIDA COURIER / OUT AND ABOUT

It’s Carnival time!

Who’s to blame? Just as Smith blamed the death of her sons on an imaginary Black man, expect Dems to blame gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist’s loss – if he loses – on the imaginary Black Floridians Democrats haven’t been able to turn out over the past 20 years – unless Barack Obama was on the ballot. A Florida Courier analysis reveals the truth – that Florida Democrats continue to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by running the same losing campaign strategy, involving many of the same people, for the past 20 years – and state Democrats keep expecting a different result. See DEMOCRATS, Page A2

Is the First Family endangered? Multiple layers of security fail BY LESLEY CLARK MCCLATCHY WASHINGTON BUREAU / MCT

WASHINGTON – Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned Wednesday amid mounting congressional criticism and as new revelations of agency lapses convinced President Obama it was time for new leadership. Joseph Clancy, a former special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service who retired in 2011, was named as acting agency director. “The president is grateful that he has taken on that very important responsibility,” Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, adding Clancy was “somebody who has earned the respect and admiration of the men and women who are his colleagues at the United States Secret Service.” And Earnest said Clancy “is also somebody who has the full confidence of the president and the first lady.”

Series of lapses Pierson, the first woman to head the elite agency that provides protection to presidents, former presidents and would-be presidents, offered her resignation less than two weeks after a man armed with a knife scrambled over a White House fence and made it inside the executive mansion. During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, an unusually bipartisan array of lawmakers harped on a wayward Secret Service culture that threatens its core mission of protecting the president and his family. They pointed to a 2012 prostitution scandal involving agents in Colombia and other allegations of misbehavior, and they hammered Pierson over operational details, such as whether agents are permitted to use personal smartphones while on duty, implying that agents were distracted and undisciplined. Agents have said Obama receives three times as many threats as previous presidents. Pierson’s office has evaluated more than 300 people as potential threats this year, she said.

Fumbled response

KIM GIBSON / FLORIDA COURIER

Representatives of Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, the U.S., Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and other countries will participate in the Miami Broward One Carnival. Events run from Oct. 5-12.

SNAPSHOTS NATION | A3

Leaders regrouping since Holder’s announcement

ALSO INSIDE

FLORIDA | A6

WORLD | B5

Zimmermans were hoping for reality show

Help for women displaced in Columbia

This month also saw the revelation that Secret Service fumbled its response to a gunman firing upon the White House in 2011, while President Obama’s younger daughter and his mother-in-law were inside. In that case, damage to the building from bullets was discovered by an usher, not an agent, and it took the Secret Service three to four days to report that the White House had been fired upon. As Pierson was testifying Tuesday, reports surfaced that agency protocols failed during Obama’s recent trip to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The Washington Examiner and The Washington Post reported that Obama apparently shared an elevator with a security contractor who was carrying a gun and had three criminal convictions for assault and battery on his record. The White House did not learn about the Atlanta incident “until shortly before it was reported,” Earnest said.

Review panel Pierson submitted her resignation to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said he will back a review “by a distinguished panel of independent experts” to look at White House security and “related issues.” He said the members would be named shortly and would submit recommendations to him by Dec. 15. Johnson said he would also ask the panel for recommendations for potential new Secret Service directors, including recommendations for candidates “who come from outside the Secret Service.” Johnson said he’d ask the panel to advise him whether it See SECURITY, Page A2

COMMENTARY: GLEN FORD: US HEADED FOR ‘CHINA SYNDROME’ MELTDOWN IN SYRIA | A4 COMMENTARY: CASSANDRA DIANE: RAISING AFRICAN CHILDREN AND ‘SEAT’ OF CIVILIZATION | A5


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