the browntable
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Michelle Obama Takes Chicago 2016 Bid Overseas
President Barack Obama has long been known as an enthusiastic supporter of the Second City’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic games. Now we know how enthusiastic—the White House is sending its biggest guns to bat for Chicago: Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett. The first lady and her old friend will travel together to the…
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Banks Won't Clean Up Their Mess Voluntarily
Update on the president’s foreclosure relief plan: Still no relief. White House spin and credulous headlines notwithstanding, the Treasury Department’s own numbers make it clear that the modest program is no match for the extraordinary problem. Why? Because if more than two years of timid, piecemeal federal initiatives have proved anything, it’s that banks cannot…
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Obama Remembers 9/11
On the eighth aniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, President Barack Obama and the entire presidential staff, from maintenance men and cooks to Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, gathered on the South Lawn of the White House to remember. The rain in Washington let up just before 8:46 a.m.—the time the…
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In Case You Missed It: Obama's Speech to Congress
President Obama addressed both chambers of Congress in a highly anticipated policy speech on health care Wednesday. In it, he laid out the framework for his plan to reform the health insurance and delivery system in America, in a way that would cut costs and provide coverage for any American who wants it—with a price…
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Obama Schools Republican Members in Speech on Health Reform
Tonight, the President brought the “full Obama” to a joint session of Congress and changed the game on health care reform. It was the speech he should have given three months ago at the beginning of our health care debate, to better frame the issue for the American public. If this speech had come at…
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PHOTO: Word, Son?
The looks say it all after South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson called the President a liar during his health care address. Particularly outdone is Speaker of the House Pelosi, who looks like one of her grandkids just did their business on the living room rug.
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Will Obama Pull the Reform "Trigger"?
Barack Obama has reached the put up or shut up moment of his presidency—and he appears to get it. His Labor Day speech was described as feisty; he even trotted out that old “fired up” anecdote. No doubt he’ll come on strong in addressing Congress tonight, too. But here’s what Hillary Clinton got right during…
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Obama's Back to School Speech Focuses on "You"
About 50 million students around the country returned to school this morning. President Barack Obama addressed a few hundred of them, from kindergarten through 12th grade, at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. The address, paired with a roundtable with students and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, was designed to kick off the school year with…
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Can White Liberals Keep Their Eye on the Prize?
I’ve been disappointed by white liberals and progressives’ unwillingness and incompetence combating racism for 20 years. The inaction of large green groups surrounding Van Jones’ resignation from the Obama administration is yet another example. The NAACP, Equal Justice Society and Color of Change explicitly supported Van Jones before his resignation. On the white side, Treehugger,…
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Was Van Jones a 9/11 Truther?
White House green jobs advocate and special adviser Van Jones has taken months of fire from conservatives for his political past, organizing for income equality, prisoners’ rights, and most famously, environmental justice. Now his flirtation with the 9/11 “truther” movement may lead the Obama administration to throw him under the bus. After a steep rise…