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Obama's Second Term: Twelve Issues and What He'll Try Do About Them

By goodblacknews on January 25, 2013
second-term-twelve-issues.jpg
In his second Inaugural Address, Barack Obama outlined several issues that he plans to focus on during his final term. Some other policy areas went largely unmentioned, but were first-term priorities that might receive more attention over the next four years. Here’s a look at the President’s record on twelve key issues: what he’s said, what he’s accomplished so far, and what he might be planning. For further details, read Ryan Lizza’s 2012 inside account of the debates over the President’s second-term agenda.

arms-control.jpg
What he’s said:
“I believe the United States has a unique responsibility to act—indeed, we have a moral obligation. I say this as President of the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons.”
March 26, 2012; Seoul, South Korea.
What he’s accomplished:
The Administration oversaw the ratification of a new Strategic Arms-Reduction Treaty with Russia in April, 2010, which will significantly reduce the number of deployed strategic weapons. It coöperated with Israel in the development of Stuxnet, a computer virus aimed at sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. also led a coalition to initiate harsh sanctions against Iran in order to pressure the country to abandon its program. The President hosted the Nuclear Security Summit in April, 2010.
Possible second-term goal:
Ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Contain Iran’s nuclear program. Pressure China and Russia to more aggressively oppose Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Students With Disabilities Have Right To Play School Sports, Obama Administration Tells Schools

By goodblacknews on January 24, 2013
Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to President Obama for Disability Policy (left), with Learning Ally member Henry “Hoby” Wedler (right)
When Kareem Dale, now a special advisor to President Barack Obama, was in high school, all he wanted to do was wrestle. But as a student who was partially blind, that wasn’t easy.
Dale’s school made it possible for him to participate in the sport by creating a rule that wrestlers always needed to be touching their opponent. “It allowed me to wrestle throughout public high school,” Dale said. “That experience of wrestling gave me confidence, it made me healthier, it was really an extraordinary experience.”
But hundreds of other students with disabilities may not have had an opportunity in school sports, a 2010 Government Accountability Office report suggested. The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights on Friday is sending school districts a 13-page guidance document that spells out the rights of students with disabilities to participate in school athletics.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker Helps Create The Caliber Collection, Bracelets Made From Seized Guns

By goodblacknews on January 23, 2013

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has teamed up with jewelry designer Jessica Mindich to repurpose some of the guns and bullet casings to create bracelets that raise awareness about gun violence.</p><br /> <p>

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has teamed up with jewelry designer Jessica Mindich to repurpose some of the guns and bullet casings to create bracelets that raise awareness about gun violence.
Newark has figured out a way to turn bullets into bling.  Newark Mayor Cory Booker has teamed up with jewelry designer Jessica Mindich to repurpose some of the guns and bullet casings confiscated by the Newark Police Department. They’re using the metal to create bracelets that raise awareness about gun violence.
The bracelets are part of the Caliber Collection and range from $150 for a simple cuff to $375 for a bangle with an embedded diamond. The steel jewelry collection is melted down from confiscated guns that were used as evidence in Newark trials, according to Mindich.  The brass bracelets are made from shell casings found at crime scenes. Twenty percent of each sale will go toward Newark’s gun buyback program.

TRANSCRIPT and VIDEO: President Obama 2013 Inaugural Address

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2013


Barack Obama Sworn In As U.S. President For A Second TermVice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.  We affirm the promise of our democracy.  We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.  What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aatTuUEtko&w=560&h=315]
Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.  For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.
For more than two hundred years, we have.

Condoleezza Rice joins CBS News as Contributor

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2013

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just in time for inauguration coverage, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has joined CBS News as a contributor.
Rice, who served as secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s second term, made her debut on “Face the Nation” Sunday and will be included in inauguration coverage on Monday.
CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes made the announcement Sunday, saying Rice “will use her insight and vast experience to explore issues facing America at home and abroad.”
Rice was the first African-American woman to serve as secretary of state, following Colin Powell in the office. She was Bush’s national security adviser during his first term and worked on the National Security Council under his father, President George H.W. Bush.

Barack Obama Sworn In to Second Term as US President

By goodblacknews on January 20, 2013
President Barack Obama is sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. in the Blue Room of the White House during the 57th Presidential Inauguration January 20, 2013 in Washington, D.C. Obama and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden were officially sworn in a day before the ceremonial inaugural swearing-in. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski-Pool/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama is sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. in the Blue Room of the White House during the 57th Presidential Inauguration January 20, 2013 in Washington, D.C. Obama and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden were officially sworn in a day before the ceremonial inaugural swearing-in. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stepping into his second term, President Barack Obama took the oath of office Sunday in an intimate swearing-in ceremony at the White House, the leader of a nation no longer in the throes of the recession he inherited four years ago but still deeply divided.

The president, surrounded by family in the ornate White House Blue Room, was administered the brief oath of office by Chief Justice John Roberts. With Obama’s hand resting on a Bible used for years by Michelle Obama’s family, the president vowed “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” echoing the same words spoken by the 43 men who held the office before him.

President Barack Obama's Profound Visual Argument for Gun Control

By goodblacknews on January 18, 2013

Barack Obama, gun control

President Barack Obama, accompanied by children who wrote to the president about gun violence following last month’s school shooting in the US, signs executive orders. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
Barack Obama signs a series of executive actions in favour of gun control, flanked by children who wrote to him after the killings at Sandy Hook. Their parents or guardians stand behind them. While the children reflect the president’s solemnity, the supervising adults are finding it hard not to grin with pride at their kids’ involvement in this historic occasion.
It might look cynical. It might seem a bit obvious. The imagery here is so crystal clear they might as well have had a big sign saying “Children! Future!” (as they sing at The Simpsons’ Springfield elementary school).
But if you think that you probably haven’t got a child. Or perhaps you rationalised the US’s horror at the shootings that led to this photograph as colossal hypocrisy in the face of alleged massacres of non-American children by military drones. For some on the left it seems Obama is little better than a child murderer himself, while for the gun-toting right, his desire to restrict gun access is an assault on freedoms defined in the 18th-century political discourse that is the Constitution of the United States:

“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

And this is the point of Obama’s photo opportunity with America’s children. The debate about gun control is a debate about history and its burdens. When that amendment was added to the constitution in 1791, the authors surely did not think they were setting down the Ten Commandments of national identity, to be preserved unaltered forever. Or if they did, well … they are dead.

Michael Tubbs Becomes Stockton, CA’s Youngest-Ever City Councilman

By goodblacknews on January 17, 2013

mdtubbs-online1Michael Tubbs, a 22 year-old Stanford graduate, is the youngest-ever city councilman to be elected in his hometown of Stockton, C.A.
Born into poverty to a teenage mother and father who is in prison, Tubbs grew up determined to make a difference.
Upon graduating from high school, Tubbs attended Stanford, where he earned a bachelor’s in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and a master’s in Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies.
While in college, Tubbs interned for both Google and the White House.  With multiple high-paying job offers, Tubbs decided to turn them down and return to his hometown to run for city council.
The struggling city of Stockton, CA. is in need of serious change.  In June of 2012, Stockton became the most populous U.S. city to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.  The city also has a record high number of homicides in 2012 with 71.
Tubbs first made headlines last spring when he received a campaign endorsement form Oprah Winfrey after meeting her on campus at Stanford.  Winfrey donated $10,000 to the then-college senior.
article by Carrie Healey via thegrio.com

Bryan Stevenson's Masterful TED Talk Challenges America's Judicial System

By goodblacknews on January 16, 2013

[ted id=1378]

Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson

Human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s insightful TED speech from 2012 eloquently discusses the injustices of our current incarceration system and encourages us all to help change it.  If you haven’t seen it previously, GBN guarantees the above video is fully worth twenty three minutes of your time.  To learn more about Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, click here.  
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson; contributions by Gabriel Ryder

Medgar Evers' Widow to Deliver Inauguration Prayer

By goodblacknews on January 9, 2013

Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of Medgar Evers (Michael Caulfield/Wire Image/Getty Images)
Medgar Evers’ widow to deliver inauguration prayer: President Obama has chosen Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights icon Medgar Evers, to deliver the invocation at his public swearing-in later this month, the Washington Post reports. This will be the first time a woman, and a layperson rather than a clergy member, has been chosen to perform the invocation.
item by Jenée Desmond-Harris via theroot.com