WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is telling Americans who voted for change: “I hear you.”
The president said the Republican victories  Tuesday in the midterm elections are a sign they want Washington “to get the job done.”
In a White House news conference, he said both parties must address those concerns. But he acknowledged as president he has a “unique responsibility to try to make this town work.”
He says he’s eager to hear Republican ideas for governing together. And he vowed to work hard during his final two years in office to make progress. He says, “It’s time for us to take care of business.”

Mayor William Bell today responded to national media inquiries regarding the Republican wave that swept midterm elections and how it impacts Birmingham’s chances for hosting the Democratic National Convention in 2016.  Questions focused specifically on the sweep impacting New York City’s chances of hosting the DNC, but gave the Mayor the opportunity to speak on Birmingham’s blue heart in a red state.

“Without the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham the bulk of the Democratic leadership would never have had the opportunity to lead. Voters need to be reminded that just 50 years ago, we did not yet have the Voting Rights Act. Just slightly over 50 years ago, we were still segregated,” said Mayor William Bell.

“The beauty of a democracy is that it gives everyone a voice if they choose to speak up and speak out. We need political parties that give a voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless. The Democratic National Convention coming to Birmingham in 2016 would remind the whole party of their roots and what it means to fight and struggle for the right to vote and how that right can never be taken for granted,” Bell continued.

Birmingham, along with four other cities, is in the running to host the 2016 Democratic Convention in which delegates of the United States Democratic Party will choose the party’s nominee for President of the United States. Birmingham is considered an underdog, but has shown that its message is strongest and encapsulates the future of the Democratic Party.

By Associated Press

ATLANTA — A security guard fired after President Barack Obama’s trip to Atlanta said Monday that he lost his job because he snapped a picture of the presidential motorcade to send to his mother and is humiliated by news reports wrongly claiming he’s a convicted felon.
Kenneth Tate, 49, worked as a guard for Professional Security Corp., a security contractor at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. As part of his job duties, he carried a concealed .40-caliber handgun issued to him daily by his employer.
He rode in an elevator with Obama during the president’s Sept. 16 visit to the CDC, though the U.S. Secret Service was apparently unaware that Tate was armed. That incident was publicly revealed after a man scaled the White House fence and entered the building. Those security breaches and other embarrassments led to the Oct. 1 resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson.
Tate said the affair cost him his livelihood and his reputation.
“This is a nightmare. My whole life (has) been changed upside down,” Tate said. “I’m trying to figure out which way to go. How do you go anywhere when it seems like the door has been closed on you? Your reputation (has) been tarnished. The embarrassment.”
The Washington Post initially reported that Tate had been convicted of crimes, but subsequently corrected the claim. The Associated Press has found no evidence of a conviction against Tate.
The office of Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who has helped lead Congress’ investigation into the Secret Service, said a whistleblower had provided him with the same information the Post initially reported.
The president of Professional Security Corp., William Banks, told The New York Times that Tate did not have any felony or misdemeanor convictions. The Times first reported Tate’s version of events.
Banks did not return multiple calls from the AP seeking comment.
Tate said he was twice charged with misdemeanor offenses in the 1990s, but he was never convicted. One incident involved an argument with a girlfriend who is now his wife. Tate said the second incident resulted from a dispute over how his sister was treating a newborn baby. Tate said he was later awarded custody of the child. His employer knew about that history, and it was also vetted by a Georgia state agency that licenses security guards.
Tate said he never hid the fact that he was armed, and no one in the Secret Service asked. His employer gave him a gun at the start of every workday, and his license to carry is documented in an Internet database available for public inspection.
CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds confirmed Tate worked as a security guard at the agency’s campus, and she said CDC officials requested that Tate’s employer reassign him after Obama’s visit. She would not comment on why the agency made that request. U.S. Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback declined to discuss Tate’s description of events.
The day of the visit, supervisors called Tate into the CDC’s security office and told him he would be escorting the president, he said. He said he helped CDC and Secret Service agents test the elevator that Obama would ride and accompanied security officials on building walkthroughs. Obama made small talk with Tate in the elevator, the guard said.
“He acknowledged me,” Tate said. “He asked me what my name was. And he extended his hand and shook my hand. I thanked him and said I was proud.”
As Obama was departing, Tate walked out the front of the building with his cellphone to take a picture of the presidential motorcade, he said. A Secret Service agent waved him away, and he was later confronted by an agent and bosses. He said he admitted taking a photograph but did not know the area around the limousine was off-limits.
“I just tried to get a picture for my mom, she’s 81 years old, just to show that I had met the president, some memorabilia for her,” he said. “… When I got back, the agent stated that somebody was going to lose their job because no one ever got that close to the motorcade. But I didn’t know it was going to be me.”

(Photo Source: AP)

WASHINGTON – In honor of the 20th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, the Department of Justice has announced a nationwide tour of  Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) grant recipients. The tour will engage with communities dedicated to ending violence against women though coordinated community response (CCR) teams. OVW launched the tour with a visit to programs in Brooklyn, New York. OVW and department officials will visit diverse communities across the country through May 2015. Officials will participate in roundtable conversations with local law enforcement, victim service providers, judges, prosecutors and other members of the coordinated community response team.
This tour is an important part of the department’s ongoing effort to prevent and address violence against women. Officials will see how best practices are playing out across the nation – especially in areas such as prosecution, law enforcement, victim services, cultural competency, language access, prevention and public awareness.
“Research shows that efforts to address violence against women are particularly effective when they are combined and integrated into a coordinated community response,” said Principal Deputy Director Bea Hanson of the Office on Violence Against Women. “We know that when police departments, courts, and victim service providers work together to create multi-disciplinary response teams, the quality of victim services and justice system responses are improved, which can influence and change the way communities understand and talk about violence against women.”
Currently, OVW administers 24 grant programs, authorized by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and subsequent legislation, designed to develop the nation’s capacity to reduce domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking by strengthening services to victims and holding offenders accountable. Since 1995, OVW has awarded more than $5.7 billion to address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in communities across the country.
The planned national tour sites are: Brooklyn, N.Y.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Alameda County, Calif.; Contra Costa County, Calif,; Vermont; New Orleans, La.; San Diego, Calif.; Duluth, Minn.; Idaho; Maryland; Multnomah County, Ore.; San Francisco, Calif. Additional sites and tour participants will be announced at a future date.

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON  — A 2010 email from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says his department was “waiting for the go-ahead” from the White House before accepting the resignation of employee Shirley Sherrod, according to newly released documents, despite Obama administration assertions that her ouster was Vilsack’s decision alone.
The email, which was made public Friday in an ongoing federal court case over the matter, shed more light on the evening of July 19, 2010, when the USDA hastily asked Sherrod to resign after a video showing her making supposed racist remarks surfaced on a conservative website. Her dismissal turned into a racial firestorm after it became clear that the video had been edited and her remarks were meant to tell a story of reconciliation.
Both the White House and Vilsack have repeatedly said the agriculture secretary made the decision to ask for Sherrod’s resignation without White House input. The emails, along with earlier emails obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act in 2010 and 2012, make it apparent that Vilsack wanted Sherrod to leave the department and ordered her resignation. But a newly-released email sent by Vilsack himself suggests he was awaiting a decision from White House officials on how to proceed.
“She has offered her resignation which is appropriate,” reads an email from the initials “TJV” to Dallas Tonsager, then the USDA undersecretary of rural development and Sherrod’s boss. “The WH is involved and we are waiting for the go-ahead to accept her resignation. I suspect some direction from WH soon.”
The USDA would not comment on the email and a spokesman, when asked, did not dispute that Vilsack wrote it. The email, sent at 5:37 p.m. on July 19, is in reply to an earlier email from Tonsager addressed to “Mr. Secretary.” Vilsack’s middle name is James.
The correspondence is evidence in a federal defamation case that Sherrod filed in 2011 against the late blogger Andrew Breitbart, who posted the video, and his colleague Larry O’Connor. The Justice Department has been pushing to keep the emails sealed, but lost Friday afternoon when U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled they did not have to be kept private.
Vilsack’s email was brought up at a court status hearing earlier last week. According to a transcript, a lawyer for Breitbart’s wife, who was substituted as defendant after the blogger died unexpectedly in 2012, said the email was “extremely telling” and “contains a statement that is arguably inconsistent with the public statements.”
Justice Department lawyer David Glass replied to the judge that “when there is a reference to the White House was involved, what it means is the White House liaison was involved.”
USDA’s White House liaison, Kevin Washo, was in touch with the White House through the night, according to the documents. In another newly released email, a White House aide writes to Valerie Green of the White House presidential personnel office, saying “USDA is looking for direction — can someone contact Washo?” Green replies that she is “reaching out now.”
Green writes Washo asking him to loop her in, “Please. Please. Please.”
The department that night accepted Sherrod’s resignation as a USDA rural development official in Georgia. When her full speech came to light the next day, it became clear that Sherrod, who is Black, was speaking about overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer decades ago.
As the administration came under fire, Vilsack reversed course, apologizing and asking her to return to the department — an offer she declined. President Barack Obama also offered Sherrod an apology.
White House officials acknowledged weeks later they had been more involved than they initially let on and had stayed in close touch with USDA that night. They still maintained, however, that the decision to seek Sherrod’s resignation was Vilsack’s alone.
The newly released emails also reveal for the first time missives between White House officials that night. By law, members of the public and the press cannot request internal White House documents directly from the White House.
In one email, then-White House Director of Presidential Personnel Nancy Hogan writes to other White House officials that Sherrod has offered to resign and says they will “need to determine what we say about resignation.”
After the full video came out the next day, frustrated White House officials vented to one another through emails. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote then-White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that “I would not have fired her for it. We just don’t need any of it.”
“Agreed,” Gibbs replied.
In another e-mail to Gibbs that next day, Jarrett notes that then NAACP President Ben Jealous had apologized for condemning Sherrod before knowing the whole story. “We need to do the same and this will do (sic) away. Even Fox said we railroaded Shirley.” In another copy of the same email released by the court, Jarrett’s same words are redacted, citing a FOIA exemption for “deliberative process.”
Lawyers for Breitbart colleague O’Connor filed the emails in court to bolster their argument that government decisions were the reason for Sherrod’s dismissal, not the blog post. The emails show that the officials were made aware there might be a longer video, and that they were concerned about political fallout from her comments. O’Connor’s lawyers argue that the “deliberative process” exemptions prove their point.
“The government cannot assert a privilege to shield the production of decision-making communications, while simultaneously claiming to have had no role in a decision,” the lawyers wrote in their filing.