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Everything Obama
May
1
A member of President Barack Obama’s entourage was infected with swine flu while in Mexico. The president’s press secretary assured the world yesterday that the Prez is as fit as ever. Meanwhile, the sick federal agent and his family are being taunted and shunned. WaPo
Marc S. Griswold, a former Secret Service agent who was serving as the lead advance special agent for Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the mid-April trip, said in an interview that the minor cough he developed in Mexico grew into swine flu. Although he has recovered and is back to work, he and his family have watched in shock as his illness has sparked national security concerns, severely strained his relationship with his brother and put his family at the center of rumors and panic in his Severna Park neighborhood.
Over the past two days, his daughter, who was not infected, has endured stares and mean jokes as rumors spread through her school about her family’s role in some of the first swine flu cases in the region, Griswold said. Griswold probably infected his nephew, and now the parents, close friends, refuse to talk to him.
“We’re not the Typhoid Mary family, for goodness’ sake,” Griswold said in frustration on the front steps of his house. “We’ve been told we’re not contagious. We’re already past the seven-day mark for that.”
Mar
18
The “Obama Women”
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That’s what the Washington Post has termed the black women in President Barack Obama’s inner circle. Many of them are lawyers–Valerie Jarrett, Melody Barnes, Cassandra Butts–who we’ve introduced you to previously. A few new ones have been added to the mix.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has become fast friends with Washington insider, Donna Brazile, and the women in the federal government.
When Jackson, with bodyguard in tow, walks through the corridors of the EPA’s vast complex in the Federal Triangle, she invariably is stopped by one of her employees, often an African American woman, who says, “Thank you for being here.” She is reminded not only of the history Obama made but also of the history she is making. Black women make up about 192,000 of the more than 1.7 million members of the federal workforce, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
The article goes on discuss further the role of African American women in past administrations.
Women earn about two-thirds of the associate and bachelor’s degrees awarded to black students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and Bureau of Labor data show that more than 2.6 million black women were employed in management and professional jobs last year. The women working for Obama have helped run Chicago city government, led nonprofit organizations, held top jobs at think tanks and influential positions on Capitol Hill.
Even so, women and minorities still lack representation in proportion to their numbers on the federal level. In Congress, only 90 members are women, 42 are African American, 28 are Latino and nine are Asian. Of late, black women have done better in Cabinet-level appointments and senior White House positions. President Bill Clinton appointed two black women to his Cabinet and several served in senior White House positions. President George W. Bush named Condoleezza Rice his national security adviser and later secretary of state, making her the highest-ranking black woman in the country’s history.
It was only 32 years ago that President Jimmy Carter appointed Patricia Roberts Harris to serve as secretary of housing and urban development, making her the first black woman in the presidential line of succession. Harris said at the time of her HUD appointment that her gender and race made her a “two for one” and called the hoopla around her nomination the result of “tragic exclusion.” In stories about her experience as the first, she described herself as lonely.
Jan
21
An Inauguration Courtoon
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Inauguration Courtoon
This witty “courtoon” was provided to us by David Mills. Check out his daily legal cartoons at Courtoons.
Jan
12
Ben’s Chili Bowl just got put on! Two moments in this video give us the tingles. The first occurs after the cashier asks Mr. Obama if he’d like his change back, and the President-elect replies, “No. We straight.” The second is that soul-handshake/man-hug Obama and Mayor Fenty share before saying goodbye.
Jan
10
When You’re “The Raisin In The Milk”
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Comedian and Jack & Jill Politics blogger, Baratunde Thurston, offers advice to the Obamas on how to help their girls navigate the prep school maze. He suggests cutting down on the cornrows to reduce the number of “can I touch your hair” requests.
From The Daily Beast:
You’ve been there. Princeton. Columbia. Harvard Law. The white-shoe law firm of Sidley Austin. The US Senate. You know what it’s like to be that raisin in the milk, the rare black face at an elite institution.
As your daughters come of age at the top prep school in our nation’s capital, they will likely face the same raisin-in-the-milk trials and awkwardness with which you are likely familiar and I most certainly am; I attended the same school, Sidwell Friends, for six years, graduating in 1995.
BT acknowledges the difference in being known at school as “The First Girls” rather than the “scholarship kid” as he was. This led us to wonder what you think. For our “raisin in the milk” readers out there, share your prep school experience. Was there a different vibe for the kid who was there because his parents cut a check and the one who got there because of programs like “A Better Chance?”
We’re also wondering how you parents out there plan to educate your kids. Are you throwing caution to the wind and tossing your kid in the ring at an inner city public school? Have you escaped to the burbs for a “decent” public school system? Are you like the Obamas, determined to give your children not only the best education possible, but the opportunity to, as BT writes, “collect as many white friends as possible for later use?”
Dec
9
In a drawn-out answer infused with double talk in late July, Obama said, “Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America because, frankly, if you’ve got 50% of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn’t really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids are not getting in to college.” In a feat of linguistic acrobatics, the presumptive Democratic nominee misses the point and makes the case for even greater affirmative action. Obama sidesteps the fact that affirmative action was intended not to solve racial problems, but to achieve racial equality. One involves the heart, the other the wallet.
In his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, President Johnson made clear the need (though it was never fully realized) for an aggressive and sweeping affirmative action plan to help “the poor, the unemployed, the uprooted and the dispossessed.” These are the very young people Obama suggests demonstrate the limits of affirmative action.
Obama has been quick to criticize African Americans for the ways in which they have failed their community. Perhaps it is time he extended his scrutiny to the actions of whites — not about slavery, but about the issue Ira Katznelson exposes in his book When Affirmative Action Was White.
Katznelson writes in great detail about how the G.I. Bill of the 1940s was crafted to favor whites. Indeed, a study at the time concluded the legislation looked as though it was written “For White Veterans Only.”
Black veterans were excluded from job-training programs, put on paths to low-paying jobs and denied housing and business loans. Worse, they were denied admission to white colleges at a time when small, underfinanced black colleges did not have enough openings for the estimated 70,000 black veterans in the late 1940s. It’s hard to imagine that limiting one black generation from the opportunity of a college education wouldn’t in some way hamper the next generation.
Obama would be wise to read Katznelson’s book and inform his position on affirmative action. Historical facts might help him avoid such flimsy discourse.
Nov
24
Obama Posse List (Cassandra Butts & Melody Barnes) (Update)
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This month the American Bar Assoication’s (ABA) magazine makes some legal picks for an Obama Administration. We’re taking a look at the black lawyers featured therein and making a few predictions of our own. Full list here.
When the election was called these two ladies were probably doing fist bumps and singing, “Whoomp There It Is.” Both women went to North Carolina, worked on the Capitol Hill and before joining the Obama Campaign, were executives at The Center for American Progress. Dare we say they are a tag team?
Cassandra Butts
Cassandra Butts
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Harvard Law School
Current: Transition team General Counsel
THIS is why you go to Harvard—to bond with future presidents. Butts met Obama in HLS’s financial aid office.
Butts from a PBS interview: “We were going through the process of filling out a lot of paperwork that would make us significantly in debt to Harvard for years to come. We bonded over that experience.”
He obviously really trusts this woman because few have been allowed to do such a “let’s psychoanalyze Barack Obama” type interview.
She left her post as senior vice president for domestic policy at the Center for American Progress to join Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign as domestic policy adviser. A background in government, she served as a senior adviser to Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.).
Melody Barnes. Courtesy of American Progress.
Melody Barnes
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
University of Michigan Law School
Currently: Co-Director of Agency Review
Before Obama - American Progress as Executive Vice President for Policy.
Before boarding the Obama train, Barnes held stints as Executive Vice President for Policy at American Progress and Chief Counsel to Sen. Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Butts and Barnes may have a lot in common, but in one area of, we can’t be sure. While Butts has remained mum on her shopping habits, Barnes has been labeled a fashion plate. See her bare arms and feet here.
Update (11-24-08; 8:18 p.m.): Today, President-elect Obama introduced Melody Barnes as his director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. We believe she is the first African American to hold this position. We also believe you’ll be hearing that phrase a lot. ThinkProgress
Nov
21
It’s On: The Battle for Obama’s Senate Seat (2nd Update)
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Valerie Jarrett. Courtesy of the University of Chicago.
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. Courtesy Jackson Office.
As previously reported here, the other half of PBO’s brain, has made it clear she is not checking for a de facto “black” post in the President-elect’s administration. Now we hear word that Valerie Jarrett has her eye on Obama’s senate seat.
This has raised a few eyebrows among the legal intelligentsia because it has long been rumored that seat would go to Jesse Jackson Jr. Goodness knows he’s earned it! While PBO may have thrown his grandmother under the bus when he shared her racist views with the world, JJJ put the bus in reverse and rolled over Daddy Jesse again and again and again. TheRoot offers an interesting take on this Nixon-Khrushchev like kitchen debate:
Jarrett may be a tough choice for Blagojevich. The governor is hugely unpopular, and his 2010 re-election chances are gravely endangered. He may choose to appoint someone who helps him with some particular voting bloc in 2010, when that appointee will be up for election to a full term in the Senate.
Or it might be that Valerie gets what Valerie wants. At a meeting in Washingtonwith black journalists over the weekend, she would not say what that was. That is up to Obama, she said: “I leave it in his hands, his very capable hands. … So we’ll see, we’ll see.”
We will.
The big question: Can “No Drama Obama” keep them from pulling out the knives?
Update (7:57 p.m.) President-elect Obama has just given Valerie Jarrett not one, or two, but three jobs in his administration. Henceforth, Jarrett will be referred to as White House Senior Advisor, Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison. NYTimes
Update (11-21-08; 10:00 a.m.) We just discovered the “Appoint Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. to the United States Senate” Facebook page.
Nov
19
Obama Posse List (Clark Kent Ervin)
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We know; we know. The Obama Posse List is dominating our posts, but truly, so many black attorneys getting put on all at once is making us giddy, so please indulge us a while longer.
PBO transition team on national security issues
The Kinkaid School
Harvard College
Harvard Law School
Currently: Director of the Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Program
We imagine there’s a lot of pressure on you, when your name is Clark Kent. Mr. Ervin seems up to any challenge. He is a great example of what can happen when a brother STANDS UP. Back in 2003, On-his-way-out Bush, appointed Ervin the first Inspector General of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Team Bush was shocked to discover that rather than another Justice Tom, they were actually dealing with a thorough and independent attorney. Before long, Ervin was drafting critical missives regarding DHS mismanagement and security flaws. Needless to say, the White House got him up out of there as soon as they could: Wiki
The end of his term was controversial. Critics viewed the lack of White House support as retribution for Ervin’s aggressive efforts to root out waste, fraud, and incompetence. For example, “I think this was a voice that was a little too critical and made the administration a little too uncomfortable,” said the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.
Seems Superman is back, better than ever.
Nov
19
Obama Posse List (James E. Johnson)
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James E. Johnson, a white-collar defense attorney, will lead a team on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission review. Johnson made partner at two white-shoe New York firms: Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Morrison & Foerster LLP; however, neither firm groomed him. Like most of the attorneys now being anointed by PBO, Johnson made a name for himself as an overworked and underpaid civil servant. From The National Law Journal:
Johnson previously served as under secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement from 1998 to 2000 and as assistant secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement from 1996 to 1998. He was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York from 1990 to 1996. He currently chairs the New Jersey Advisory Committee on Police Standards and led Governor Jon Corzine’s Homeland Security transition team.
