Author: Carma Henry

     This month, the city of Tampa will be painted purple and gold for the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s 84th Grand Conclave.

     “Artful Minds – In Your Own Voice” focuses on the integration of art as a beneficial way of coping and healing for folks living with mental illness. This year’s event featured considerable talent in poetry, spoken word, music, mosaics and other multi-media art. The exhibit put on by NAMI Broward County was held at the Mad Artz gallery in Dania Beach. Its sponsors included Moss, Memorial Healthcare System, Bright Star Credit Union, GRYC Trial Lawyers, BBX Capital, Michaelangelo Impact Partners, Entertainment Impact Partner, Richardo Bichara CPA, P.A., SC- StrubleCohen Trial Lawyers Appellate Council, Kip Hunter Marketing, Edgar Degas Impact Partners Segal Trials, Baron Silver Steven, Media Impact Partners, Magazine Lifestyle, SFBW South Florida Business & Wealth, and more.

     The 2024 graduates, filled with young adults actively seeking ways to improve the world through volunteer work or prospective careers, have big aspirations and even bigger hearts. 

     The St. Thomas University Benjamin L. Crump College of Law is benefiting from restaurant chain Denny’s $3.3 million pledge to support 14 institutions across the country with its new Nationwide Community Alliance. Besides St. Thomas University (STU), other beneficiaries include the NAACP and National Urban League, as well as the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, League of Latin American Citizens, National Action Network, and U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, among others. 

     Through the years, I’ve never hidden my many misgivings with United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and while I disagree with his conclusions on most of the cases and controversies that our nation’s highest court considers each term, I’ve always suspected that it’s the “how” he reaches his decisions that irks me to no end.

More clean energy initiatives are needed and proposing them should remain a priority for the administration. That said, the new EPA policy rule on existing coal and natural gas plants should be done in a manner that protects the environment and climate while also enhancing the economy. The administration needs to ensure that new well-intentioned mandates will not have the unintended consequences of making electricity more expensive, especially for underserved communities.

      However, I will vote in November 2024. This year’s election may be the last free and fair election in the United States!

America would be better off with no Trump

     Former President Donald Trump was convicted by a 12-person jury in New York State Court of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, in violation of New York Penal Law § 175.10.

     The Conservative Right, which is manifesting itself in election officials of the Republican Party and now the United States Supreme Court itself, would seek to roll back all social gains made since the Brown Decision of 1954, which in effect reversed the “separate but equal” Jim Crow doctrine which was further outlawed with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. This law and the Voting Rights Act gave new meaning to the “Equal Protection Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.