the browntable

That’s right, it’s official: Chocolate City has a developing world AIDS epidemic. Three percent of the population is HIV positive, city officials are announcing today. And that’s just counting the people who have actually been tested—federal health officials believe anywhere from a quarter to a third of people living with HIV in the U.S. don’t…

In a special piece for The Root, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) denies allegations that she improperly aided minority-owned banks during the federal bailout of troubled financial institutions: I have been an outspoken advocate for minority communities and businesses in California and nationally for decades. Recent press reports suggest that somehow I have acted improperly in…

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…

One more unexpected and fantastic advantage to having Barack Obama overturn the Bush administration’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research: The stem cell research that did go on under Bush was often sponsored by private sources and benefactors. In our current economic downturn, those sources have bit hammered by losses, and might…

Today Vice President Joe Biden announced Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske will coordinate national policy as Director of the Office of National Drug Control—otherwise known as America’s Drug Czar. Biden said, “I’ve been a little disappointed the last eight years it hasn’t gotten the attention that it should have gotten. But that’s about to change.”…

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…

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…

Green news wires are reporting that Van Jones, longtime social justice activist and green jobs advocate, has been tapped as a “green jobs czar” for the Obama administration—though a White House aide counsels that that title is not entirely accurate. The White House Council on Environmental Quality confirms that such a position has been filled…

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…

Last week, the International Criminal Court, a prosecutorial arm of the United Nations, issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir. The first ever such warrant for a sitting head of state (Bashir bests génocidaires Slobodan Milosevic and former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who were nabbed after leaving power) accuses the president of committing…