Featured Article
TIME TO REGROUP
by jonetta rose barras
SUPREME COURT SETS NEW DIVERSITY STANDARDS AND D.C. DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON VOWS TO OVERTURN THAT DECISION
NOT surprisingly, the Supreme Court has ruled 5 to 4 in favor of the New Haven, Connecticut fire fighters who argued that they were the victims of reverse discrimination, when the results of a promotions test was tossed out because no African Americans had passed it.
While civil rights advocates may not be happy about the court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the five justices actually did them a favor. It is clear that old strategies from the 20th Century that once were appropriate and successful cannot continue to be used to right past wrongs. Liberal and “progressive” national leaders will need to gather together to forge a new more current solution that takes into account the advances made by blacks and Hispanics over the past 20 years.
[continue reading...]Quick Takes
SACHS/MASON- DIXON POLLCrist leads all for Senate;Meek leads Brown among Democrats
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A new statewide poll released by Ron Sachs Communications shows Gov. Charlie Crist leading 51 percent to 23 percent over former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio in the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate, with 26 percent undecided.
Crist enjoys virtually total name recognition among Florida Republicans, while Rubio is recognized by 52 percent of likely Republican primary voters.
In the Democratic Primary, Congressman Kendrick Meek leads Congresswoman Corrine Brown 27 percent to 12 percent, but nearly two-thirds of voters, 61 percent, remain undecided. Name recognition for both candidates among Democratic voters remains under 50 percent.
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Voices
BIG MEDIA’S HEALTH GRADE: Fby Richard Hébert
After salvaging the sunken Bush economy, health care reform is the biggest domestic story of the year. So why are mainstream media outlets – both print and broadcast – ignoring it? Their silence is deafening.
As happened in 1992-1994, today’s health reform story is caught up in a tangle of lies, both explicit and implicit. As a senior White House health-policy advisor, Paul Starr had a front row seat in 1992-94. In 1995, after the reform effort’s demise, he wrote: “The Republicans enjoyed a double triumph, killing reform and then watching jurors (voters) find the president guilty. It was the political equivalent of the perfect crime.”
In September 2007 he went a step further and lay some of the blame squarely on the media’s doorstep: “The mythology of ‘Hillarycare,’ as the Republicans like to call it, is only partly the result of right-wing misrepresentations of the plan as a ‘government takeover’…. The press never got the story right in the first place.”
This time, it’s unlikely they’ll get it at all. With few exceptions, they’ve been AWOL. More frightening still, their compliance is letting health care reform get swift-boated, literally.
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In Depth
DEFENSE OF MARRIAGEby jonetta rose barras
Same-sex marriage proponents in the District may not want to celebrate just yet. The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics may have delivered them a victory, deciding earlier this week that the issue cannot go before the voters in a referendum “because it would authorize discrimination prohibited under the Human Rights Act (HRA).” But the war to preserve “traditional marriage” in the nation’s capital certainly isn’t over.
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The Barras Report
ANYBODY BUT FENTYby jonetta rose barras
IT may not lead to much. But a group of residents, chief among them Ward 5 political activist Kathryn Pearson-West, seem determined to find someone to run against Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. In short order, the man who won every precinct in the District in 2006 when he made his first bid for the executive suite has gathered a crew of critics and enemies.
The Anybody-but-Fenty (ABF) crowd includes some D.C. Council members, voters who never much liked the young mayor who has been included in the new styled black leaders, and former fans who have watched in disbelieve as their guy morphed into what they call a “mini dictator.”
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