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First Step: Pass the Bill
From The American Prospect: The potential death of the public option has raised considerable anger on the liberal side of the spectrum. However, while an important element of the health reform plan, it’s still only an element, and I think it’s become something more than just a policy idea. It’s become the Alamo: a symbol…
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Usain Bolt Covers 100 Meters Much More Quickly than Everyone Else
From ESPN: Usain Bolt crossed the finish line, saw his record-setting time on the clock and spread his arms as if he were soaring like a bird. About all this guy can’t do is fly. And by saving his celebration until after the finish line this time, he showed how fast a man really can…
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Um…Isn't the Public Option Kind of the Point?
From the NY Times: The White House, facing increasing skepticism over President Obama’s call for a public insurance plan to compete with the private sector, signaled Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate. The “public option,” a new government insurance…
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Entering 'District 9'
District 9 is the antidote to the cynical, CGI-obsessed, P.T. Barnum-esque schlock that passes for sci-fi filmmaking these days, films in which people and plot matter little in the service of razzle-dazzle special effects and things that go boom in the night. (Yes, Michael Bay, I’m talking to you. Go forth and “Transform” no more.)…
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Mr. President, You Have Some 'Splainin' to Do…
From the Huffington Post: A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly…
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Doing Write while Doing Time
Below is an excerpt from Betts’ forthcoming memoir, ‘A Question of Freedom’, posted at The Atlantic: One morning my cell-mate Roger was walking to the cafeteria wearing his do-rag, the leg of a pair of long johns tied with a knot at the top. When he walked into the cafeteria a Corrections Officer called out,…
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Party Time! Southerners Celebrate 150th Anniversary of the War of Northern Aggression
From NewsOne: To mark the Civil War’s centennial 50 years ago, some whites donned Confederate uniforms or hoop skirts and paraded to sentimental notions of the Old South, partly in answer to the civil rights struggle exploding around them. Blacks quietly met apart to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation. In Alabama, whites held beard-growing contests and…
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Clinton Ends African Tour in Cape Verde
From Al Jazeera: Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has arrived in Cape Verde, ending her seven-nation tour of the African continent. Clinton, who started her journey in Kenya, flew from Liberia on Thursday to Sal, one of Cape Verde’s islands, and was due to meet Jose Maria Neves, the prime minister, at a…
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Bird of a New Feather: Vick Signs with Eagles
From CNN: Michael Vick, recently reinstated to the NFL after being freed from federal prison after a dogfighting-related conviction, has signed a two-year deal with the Philadelphia Eagles, according to his agent, Joel Segal. The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback reports to Philadelphia on Friday, Segal told CNN. Details of the deal were not immediately available…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
