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Photo of the Day: Obama Swings Cricket
Swing Batta! Obama and cricketer Brian Lara practice their stance in Trinidad and Tobago during Obama’s visit for the fifth Summit of the Americas. (Pete Souza/White House image) Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.
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Forfeit on the Race Conference
The United Nations World Conference Against Racism begins today in Geneva, Switzerland—without the Obama administration in attendance. The United States decided on Saturday to boycott the conference, just as the Bush administration did in 2001, when it was held in Durban, South Africa, amid a firestorm of controversy surrounding elements of the conference charter viewed…
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Department of Nine Lives: Kerry Makes Moves for Peace in Sudan
2004 electoral flameout notwithstanding, Senator John Kerry deserves credit for picking himself up, dusting himself off, and throwing himself into international foreign political issues with the zeal of someone plotting a future run for president. Since losing to George W. Bush, the former soldier has tackled countless unglamorous but important issues that could otherwise be…
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Obama and Holder Let OLC "Torture Memos" Drop
Listen up, America: Elections have consequences. The much-debated, much denounced series of so-called “torture memos” prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush have been released in edited form by the Obama administration. The document dump accompanies a statement by the president, avowing that torture methods undermine our moral authority and do…
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"Michelle Obama Not Coming" to Port of Spain
Via a well-informed Trinidadian, today’s top billing at the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, on the occasion of President Barack Obama’s trip to Port of Spain for the 5th Summit of the Americas: “Michelle Obama Not Coming.” Having missed out on Barack’s goodwill op-ed, which ran in a rival paper today, the local Guardian—which, I’m told,…
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Cuba: The Phantom Menace
When President Barack Obama hits Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago this weekend for the Fifth Summit of the Americas, all of the democratically elected governments of the Western Hemisphere will be there to talk trade, recession and security issues. Well, almost all. The single outcast: Cuba, the undemocratic island nation on which the U.S.…
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“My President is Rich”: Tax Day Remix
Well, it’s April 15, and the returns are in—the presidential ones, that is. Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden have filed their taxes and released, for public speculation, their accounting. The skinny: The Obamas made an adjusted gross income of $2,656,902 and paid $855,323 in federal income tax and $77,883 in state…
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The Black Pack, Again: EBONY Profiles White House Rainbow Coalition
Pop, politics and race collide in this month’s issue of EBONY magazine, which features a remarkable photograph of a dozen top-level, African American advisers (most of whom are women!) to President Barack Obama. It was never certain that the first black president would have a particularly black administration (though the campaign’s reservoir of young black…
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Barack Obama's Tax Day Talking-To: "Prose, Not Poetry"
President Barack Obama has just finished giving a big speech about the economy. You can tell it was a big speech because it has a name: “A New Foundation,” to be precise. In the address, delivered at Georgetown University on the eve of Tax Day (and a number of Republican protests, if the GOP echo…
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What Recovery? Who to Blame for that "Streetlight Tax" in D.C.
This weekend, the NEW YORK TIMES provided a valuable accounting of the impact that the recession is having on state and city budgets. The short answer: not good. Nothing, it seems, is off the table. In Pima County, Ariz., the County Board of Supervisors increased an assortment of fees, including the cost of AIDS testing.…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
