Progressive Media Advocates
To be a reliable vicar, even for a president as cautious and deliberative as Barack Obama, she must still prove just how strong her backbone really is. She shouldn’t wait for the next crisis to do so. Now is the time to forge strong constituencies of her own at home and abroad, and to take those risks. At stake is not only her own reputation, but also that of her president and her country.
So Palestinians will be watching, more closely than most Americans, the House vote on H.R. 867, condemning the Goldstone Report. If it passes, that will be one more signal to the Palestinians that the fine words they’ve heard coming from the White House may have no substance behind them.
Congolese president Joseph Kabila paved the way for a troupe of Spanish Clowns, while thugs and militia rule the Kivus and truth-seeking journalist are threatened.
Will argues that we should take the Iraqi government at its word and wind down our involvement there, as specified in the 2008 security agreement: “The United States should treat this as a Dirty Harry moment: Make our day.”
The midwives need the means to accomplish their noble goal of saving women through direct intervention, HIV/AIDS counseling, and nutrition. This is truly a grassroots effort with a humble beginning that literally transforms grass and roots into life-supporting energy.
linton’s uncompromising condemnation of perpetrators of sexual violence has not been thoroughly emphasized or analyzed, but sniping has already begun about AFRICOM’s involvement in her initiative.
I understand that Obama, as the first African American to assume the presidency, has to walk a racial tight rope, a burden no other American president has had to bear. But as an African American woman who cried the night he was elected and cried the day he was inaugurated, I feel a deep sense of betrayal.
Hillary Clinton’s blunt public statement that President Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions” made for good headlines. The Israelis were shocked and upset that their slavish ally had acted slightly less obsequious and engaged in a public spat with them. This ballyhooed baby step came [...]
This is the way the Global War on Terror (also known, in Bush-era jargon, as GWOT) ends, not with a bang, not with parades and speeches, but with an obscure memo, a few news reports, vague denials, and a seemingly off-handed comment (or was it a carefully calculated declaration?) from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: [...]
Recent statements by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, admitting that they were going to use the economic crisis to get other things done, is at least surprisingly honest. But it is also hypocritical. Remember when some of these same people criticized George W. Bush [...]
Chair Michael Steele, of Republican National Committee (RNC) fame, has announced that a first objective as newly elected leader of the GOP will be to reach out to the hip-hop community. He’s planning an “off the hook” public relations offensive by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” Translation? He wants to attract younger [...]
Dear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, The humanitarian situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is disintegrating and it is time for the United States to intervene publicly and forcefully. According to report after report from human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), the violence [...]
At his press conference on Monday, President Barack Obama had to remind Mara Liasson of Fox News and NPR that it was the Republicans who doubled the national debt over the past eight years and it’s a little strange to be hearing lectures from them now about how to be fiscally responsible. That interchange was [...]
It’s been less than two weeks, but patterns have emerged that are likely to continue throughout Barack Obama’s presidency. First, Obama understands how to use the media. Examples are detailed below, but the best is the widespread media story last Thursday about how the usually cool Obama “lost it” — in front of cameras and [...]
Though he’s not yet confirmed, it looks like former Senator Tom Daschle will be joining President Obama (I so like saying that) in his Cabinet, heading up all the agencies that provide resources and oversight for America’s health and healthcare dollars. In addition, he will wear another, related, hat: heading up the new White House [...]
In the summer of 2006 I attended the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard. One of the guest presenters was 95-year-old Johnnie Carr, the woman who took over the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1956 after the successful Montgomery bus boycott when Martin Luther King, Jr. went [...]
New York Governor David Paterson is involved in a high stakes daisy petal pull game of ‘she loves me, he loves me not’ in Albany where he contemplates who will replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. He is also wrestling with an enormous budget shortfall, residual fallout from replacing Governor ‘High-Priced Call Girl’ — a.k.a. [...]
Some have looked at the list of Obama’s latest appointees and said that Obama has thrown his supporters under the bus. Others say his selections are nothing less than masterful. We, at the LA Progressive, have decided not to weigh in. . .yet. Instead of giving you our opinion, we’ve compiled a list of the [...]
We’ve celebrated for two-and-a-half weeks and what better way to remember Jack Kennedy on this solemn day than to watch President-elect Obama’s deliberate, studious, and principled leadership in action. The hard work began precisely at 11 p.m. on 04 November, healing our land and cleaning up our reputation in the world, after the Administration of [...]
by Natalie Davis – True progressive voters had a couple of actual progressive options in the November 4 election. They could have gone with Green hopeful Cynthia McKinney or Independent candidate Ralph Nader. We knew Barack Obama was no progressive messiah — his No on Prop 8 and anti-marriage-equality tap dance and flip-flops on FISA [...]
by Charley James – As a progressive, one of the things that I appreciate about MSNBC’s evening line-up is that although its people have a liberal point of view, they stick to actual facts rather than slide down into the slimy half-truths and outright lies that Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and the other on Fox’s [...]
Fresh off a thrilling presidential campaign, California Democrats face a Governor’s race without a candidate that can rally a multi-racial, class-crossing grassroots base. The three most talked about candidates — Dianne Feinstein, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom — neither offer a sharply new direction nor provide the transformational message that was at the heart of [...]
A friend of mine who is a Republican contends the rampant criticism of Sarah Palin in the media is largely based on the fact that she is a woman. My friend also blames the John McCain campaign for “mishandling” Palin and comes to her defense, stating that Palin is “ . . . a woman [...]
After Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses by a surprisingly large margin, the punditocracy was troubled. Pundits had virtually conceded the nomination to Hillary Clinton, and now went into high gear explaining the Illinois Senator’s deficiencies.
“Kill him” and “terrorist” were hollered by audiences this past weekend in stump speeches by Sarah Palin and John McCain. Just as when McCain was asked “how do we beat the bitch…” he smiled and waved like the mischievous penguins in the kids film Madagascar. Sorry, but threatening someone under United States Secret Service protection [...]
Barack Obama is a formidable candidate for President. And he’s our candidate: a Democrat, a liberal, and a progressive; intelligent and mature with a Chicago-style political savvy.
Alright, so it’s been an unpredictable election year. When the primaries began, Hillary Clinton was the heavy favorite and John McCain was all but dead in the water with Fred Thompson’s entry in the race being eagerly awaited by conservative and moderate Republicans alike. And something may yet happen – the oft-cited, much worried about, [...]
Randy Shaw: Now that cities offer walkable, bicycle-friendly, public transit-available neighborhoods with desirable restaurants and a high quality of life, the poor are being shunted to car-dependent suburban areas in economic decline.
Julie Driscoll: Call me crazy, but I believe firmly that the statutory laws are in place for a reason – to prevent the exploitation of young men and women who don’t have the ability to make informed decisions, who don’t have the ability to “consent.”
Lauren Steiner: Please help us spread the word across Los Angeles! Come with signs that say “Bruce Karsh, please don’t sell the LA Times to the Kochs” and “Bruce Karsh, our democracy is not for sale” We are gathering Thursday, May 23 for a rally and march.
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On Cabinet Picks, Obama Savvier than Progressive Critics
by Randy Shaw – As Barack Obama’s Cabinet fills with Clinton Administration veterans, some are raising concerns why no “movement progressive” has been selected. Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State galvanized fears that Obama’s cabinet is unduly “centrist,” a concern amplified by the daily parade of predominately white male Clinton veterans in the “possible [...]