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Maxine Waters in Hot Seat Over Shady Bailout
The NEW YORK TIMES and the WALL STREET JOURNAL are reporting a seemingly improper role California Rep. Maxine Waters—one of my congressional heroes—played in getting bailout cash for Boston-based OneUnited Bank. OneUnited is one of the nation’s largest minority-owned banks. Waters reportedly brokered a September 2008 meeting at Treasury for the bank, in which its…
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Lorraine Hansberry's Gay Politics
The thing about history is that you don’t get answers to questions you don’t ask. Sally Hemings was a forgotten slave until Annette Gordon-Reed came along. Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War forward were said to play no meaningful role until black scholars ferreted out the facts. And Lorraine Hansberry had nothing to do with…
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Why Are We Always Bashing Teachers?
Your best public policy lessons on any issue come from observing at the ground level. And since I’ve got no kids and haven’t seen the inside of a school since the early 1990s, I often steer clear of education debates. It’s complicated, emotional stuff, which I learned when a deeply progressive colleague and parent told…
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Obama Pulls Our Head Out of Scientific Sand
It’s easy to forget—with the global economy ground to a halt and all—just how much the Bush crowd jammed up the gears of science, too. But President Obama reminded us of the fact yesterday when he lifted the Bush-era ban on funding for stem cell research. Obama used soaring language to mark the moment in…
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Oprah Hits Back on Domestic Violence
Kudos to Oprah Winfrey. Too many other celebrities have cowered away from stating the obvious: Chris Brown is a batterer and none of this shit is funny. (Kate Harding at SALON has a nice piece on black celebs’ soft-shoe routine in particular.) So now Oprah’s planning a whole show on domestic violence, hopefully stoking a…
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Mob Rule in California
Sure, Ken Starr’s a creep who’s made a career as the right wing’s legal hatchet man. But when he told the California Supreme Court yesterday that it couldn’t throw out Proposition 8, he was probably right. Don’t get me wrong: I think Prop 8, which repeals previously granted same-sex marriage rights, is a shameful blemish…
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Carnegie Hall Goes Black
MC Lyte plays Carnegie Hall tonight. You know, as in, “Why, oh why did I need cappuccino?” That Lyte. Doug E. Fresh will be there, too. It’s not that Carnegie has gone old-school hip-hop. Lyte and the Original Human Beat Box are part of a strikingly eclectic show launching Carnegie’s monthlong celebration of black music, put…
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Obama’s Not-So-Bold AIDS Czar Pick
Last week, the Obama administration tapped Georgetown University researcher Jeff Crowley to lead the Office of National AIDS Policy; the director is the president’s top AIDS adviser, acting as point person for Congress and coordinating work across federal agencies. Crowley’s a longtime AIDS advocate and a smart policy wonk, an all-around competent guy. He’s also…
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Killing DC Voting Rights With Dirty Tricks
Washington, DC is closer than it’s been in memory to finally gaining voting representation in Congress. The Senate version of a bill that would turn Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton into a voting member of the House passed an important legislative hurdle on Tuesday, when 62 members voted to close debate on the matter, clearing the…
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100-Plus Pages of Gov’t Geek Reading
I can’t say I’ve ever read the whole budget, but it’s always fun to try—kinda like professing every Christmas that you’re gonna go back and read the whole Bible. Anyway, the digest Obama put out today isn’t even the whole budget, that’s not coming until April. But here’s the full text (and smartly designed cover)…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
