Search results for: “node/olopade”
-
Beat The (Black) Press: White House Launches E-Magazine
The Obama administration today released the first edition of White House Wire, a special newsletter aimed at the black community. Aggregating recent news such as UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s speech at Howard University Law School, Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s trip to Chicago to address youth violence, the naming of a…
-
Health Care Bill Passes. No Public Option. Yet?
After five months of congressional debate and five hours of tense discussion, the Senate Finance Committee passed the makings of significant health care reform. Backed by 13 Democrats and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, the wide-ranging bill introduced by committee chairman Max Baucus will cover needed reforms on which there is almost no partisan disagreement—comparative effectiveness…
-
Barack Obama Wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
President Barack Obama today won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first sitting American president to win the award since Woodrow Wilson. As day broke across the United States, the International Nobel Committee announced the decision in Oslo, Norway—taking both foreign policy watchers and ordinary citizens by surprise. The Nobel citation emphasized Obama’s efforts to…
-
Welcome to the Fun House: Obama Plays Ball With Cabinet
I imagine keeping house where one works—running the free world, no less—can be decidedly unfun at times. Yet the stack of problems and tough decisions on US domestic and foreign policy haven’t stopped the multitasking president Barack Obama from trying to have a little fun at home. To wit: The whole Obama family hosted what’s…
-
On Chicago Violence, Eric Holder Top Cops Out
The brutal killing of Chicago high schooler Derrion Albert left countless Americans stunned. In an attempt at damage control—in an immediate and long-term sense—White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder and former Chicago Schools superintendent and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago to confront the constellation of issues that led…
-
First African–American Studies Program Launches in Turkey
I am in Istanbul, Turkey for the next few days, and have had the opportunity to take in a number of fascinating aspects of contemporary Turkish culture. My vague forethoughts of dervishes, fundamentalists and stern Ottoman raiders has been displaced by visions of a thoroughly modern, yet ancient city. In Istanbul, which literally straddles East…
-
How Rio De Janeiro is like Barack Obama
Well, the word is in for the 2016 Olympics, and it’s not so pretty for my hometown, Chicago. After three rounds of voting in Copenhagen, Denmark, the International Olympic Committee announced that Rio de Janeiro will host the games, making it the first Olympics to be held in South America. That alone is news worth…
-
"Brick City" Offers More Real Talk Than Pep Talks
Via Baratunde Thurston of Jack and Jill Politics, a stirring clip from Brick City, the Sundance Channel documentary on Newark, New Jersey and its Mayor, Cory Booker: I pulled this clip because I think it’s the most powerful monologue I’ve seen in a good long while. The speaker is not an actor, however. This is…
-
Is President Obama Really Going to Grovel in Copenhagen?
The president heads to Europe today—not to bargain for an international treaty on climate change, or to join the heated Swiss negotiations on Iranian nuclear ambitions, but to beg and plead on behalf Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. There had been some speculation about who might go fight for the president’s adopted hometown (last week, Michelle…
-
The Public Option Is Dead, Long Live the Public Option
A government-administered health insurance plan—similar to Medicare, for any American who wants it—has had a rocky debut on the national political stage this year. Known to its supporters and detractors alike as “the public option,” it was debated anew by the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday. As befits such a heated debate, there were charts, there…