Showing posts tagged “Barack Obama”
Bob Geary ·
23 Feb 2010, 4:08 PM ·
Comment
The U.S. Department of Energy is out with an inspector general’s report today on the “progress” of the Obama Administration’s program for weatherizing low-income homes — and creating much-needed jobs in the bargain. The New York Times‘ summary: It has “borne little fruit” after a year.
So little, in fact, that the IG called it “alarming,” the Times says:
New York State, for example, had a goal of weatherizing 45,400 units over three years but by December had accomplished only 280, a completion rate of 0.62 percent, the report found. One reason was a hiring freeze in New York City.
Progress in Pennsylvania, which weatherized 1.28 percent of the houses and apartments it had intended to, was slowed by a deadlock over the state budget, the report said. Illinois wanted to hire 21 workers to oversee nearly work on 27,000 homes; it hired none because of a spending freeze, and completed only 331, or 1.23 percent of its three-year target.
Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Texas and Wyoming had not weatherized any units by Feb. 16, the report said.
But what about North Carolina, you ask? The answer is on page 3 of the report. North Carolina planned to weatherize 22,203 units. So far, it’s done 197 — or less than 1 percent.
But in North Carolina’s defense, the report continues:
Although North Carolina’s original state plan had been approved by the Department in June 2009, the State had to submit an amended plan, including budget information, through its Department of Commerce. The amended state plan was ultimately not approved by the Department of Energy until November 2009. Accordingly, North Carolina did not have access to its allocation for the Weatherization Program until that time.
***
Wasn’t this supposed to be the simplest of programs for the new Administration — a program that would pay its way both in energy savings and job skills learned by the workers — that it was cinch to be successful?
Oh, my.
North Carolina, national, news Barack Obama, jobs, weatherization
Bob Geary ·
22 Feb 2010, 11:13 AM ·
1 Comment
Obama’s health care proposal, released in advance of Thursday’s big TV show summit with the Republicans, omits the public option (which, in case you’ve forgotten, and the President hopes you have, was included in the House-passed bill). An 11-page summary of the Obamacare plan is here.
national, news Barack Obama, health care reform
Lisa Sorg ·
29 Jul 2009, 4:25 PM ·
2 Comments
—By Jane Snyder
Sara Coleman probably arose this morning a bit nervous. She was, after all, about to introduce the President of the United States to an estimated 2,000 people at today’s town hall meeting at Raleigh’s Broughton High School.
But surely she didn’t expect to become this week’s “Joe the Plumber.”
President Obama motions toward Sara Coleman, owner of The Cupcake Shoppe in Raleigh. Photo by Jenny Warburg
Coleman, owner of The Cupcake Shoppe, a stylish bakery on Glenwood Avenue that just yesterday celebrated its second year in business, gave a brief address from the perspective of a small-business owner who supports the administration’s efforts to reform healthcare in America.
Then she had the honor of introducing President Obama, and sat just behind him in full view of the television cameras.
When the president took the podium, he thanked Sara and informed the crowd that Sara had just given him a Cupcake Shoppe T-shirt.
“But no cupcakes!,” he deadpanned.
Though he is trying to improve the country’s health care system, he thinks cupcakes are a pretty healthy food, the president said, smiling.
He continued to invoke Sara’s name throughout his remarks, personalizing her plight as a small business owner, much as the third McCain-Obama debate did for the man who came to be known as Joe the Plumber.
The Cupcake Shoppe
Coleman’s business has expanded to include one full-time baker/ cake decorator and four employees who work up front, says Liza Zaytoun, who was manning the cupcake counter this afternoon. Zaytoun says that prior to baking, Coleman worked in pharmaceuticals, which one supposes would give Coleman extra perspective on health care.
Today’s special cupcake over at the Cupcake Shoppe is a pineapple cake with cherry buttercream. Pineapple for Hawaii, perhaps? Cherry for Washington?
All in all, it must have been a pretty sweet day for Sara the Baker.
Raleigh, business, news, politics Barack Obama, Cupcake Shoppe, Sara Coleman
Matt Saldaña ·
25 Jul 2009, 1:51 PM ·
5 Comments
Day Two of the Green Party’s 2009 National Meeting in Durham featured a forum on single-payer health care (though “forum” may be a stretch; the consensus was that single-payer is the best, and only, option) and press conferences introducing Green Party elected officials, and candidates, to the world.
But the real action happened in workshops, where local Green Party leaders, seated in N.C. Central University classroom chairs, licked the wounds of a contentious 2008 convention in Chicago, and pondered whether the Green Party had lost its relevance in the eyes of the public.
“As I look across this room, we’re old,” said George Martin, former co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party and a founder of the Green Party Black Caucus. “Not to mention [a lack of] people of color.”
Martin said the Green Party had lost its “feeder system” when Campus Greens, a national student organization, folded due to organizational mishaps, including tax trouble and having no official ties to the national party.
“We’ve got to go back to our roots, and we’ve got to go young,” he said. “Let’s get back to our basic organization. We are activists. We are activists because we weren’t satisfied with the political system.” Continue reading »
national, politics Barack Obama, George Martin, green jobs, green party, John Rensenbrink, Kat Swift, Ralph Nader
Lisa Sorg ·
9 Jul 2009, 3:02 PM ·
6 Comments
Photo by Jaymes Powell
Jaymes Powell reports for the Indy about a clash in Raleigh between pro-Obama and anti-Obama activists.
Dozens of protesters, arguing everything from President Obama’s health care plan to even race, verbally clashed outside of the United States Federal Courthouse in Downtown Raleigh Thursday afternoon and were separated by city police.
The liberal group MoveOn.org organized the rally and had about 30 demonstrators cheering on universal health care. A group of about 40 conservatives, some saying they were organized by the Wake County Republican Party, counter-protested, carrying signs, chanting and receiving a large number of approving car honks.
At one point, the two groups began yelling at each other while massed directly in front of the courthouse and Raleigh police separated the two groups.
“The watch commander said there were opposing viewpoints,” police spokesman Jim Sughrue said, adding that there were no arrest and that police breaking-up the arguing groups, “helped insure the disagreement didn’t escalate. And both groups still had an opportunity to get their point across.”
The conservative group then began to sing “America The Beautiful.”
The liberal group, now on the West side of the building and separated by about eight officers, began singing the same song as agitation on both sides continued to mount.
Larry Larrison, 66 of Clayton, shouted at one woman in the liberal group.“Why don’t you get a job and pay for health care,” Larrison, a Vietnam veteran screamed.
Minutes later, as some of the liberal protesters left, walking East through the group of conservatives, universal health care proponent Cheryl D. Moon of Knightdale bumped the sign of conservative protester Larry Herwig, 61 of Washington, N.C., with her fist.
After being alerted by the conservative protesters, police briefly detained Moon, but Herwig declined to take further action, he said.
“I didn’t want to get down to their level,” said Herwig, another Vietnam vet. “With what I have to deal with at the [Veterans Administration] to get treatment is terrible. That’s what government health care is going to be.”
Shahzeel Sarfraz, the 20 year-old UNC student and organizer of the event, approached Herwig and apologized for his supporter’s behavior, saying “There’s no place for that.”
Herwig, who initially refused to shake Sarfraz’s outreached hand, and others said that Congress should take its time on health care legislation. “Don’t try and rush it through with nobody reading it,” Herwig said, after speaking with and shaking Sarfarz’s hand. “There’s too much at stake.”
Sarfraz countered that everyone needs health care, but was hesitant to defend all of the President’s plan, admitting he didn’t know all of it and that there was still work to be done.
Sarfraz pointed out that there was waste in private health care, now. A case Herwig partially agreed with.
But after hearing a story about a laid-off Wall Street investment banker with AIDS, who went to Duke University, and now has no savings or health provider, Herwig agreed with Sarfraz that everyone should be entitled to care, but a different system would be needed.
Both sides also agreed that there was little room for compromise. It was left or right.
Raleigh, politics Barack Obama, health care reform, moveon.org, protest, Wake County GOP
Matt Saldaña ·
3 Jun 2009, 4:16 PM ·
Comment
Last April, President Barack Obama reversed history in announcing he would remove all restrictions from Cubans in the United States who wish to visit, and send money to, their family on the island. The two countries have also agreed to resume high-level migration talks, broken off during President George W. Bush’s tenure. And this afternoon, news agencies are reporting that the Organization of American States has revoked its 1962 suspension of Cuba from the hemispheric partnership. (Cuba would still need to formally apply, in order to join OAS, which they have recently indicated they would not do.)
“For the first time since the early 60s, we have a dialogue on Cuba,” UNC-Chapel Hill professor Louis A. Perez, Jr. said in an interview with the Indy.
What do Cubans in North Carolina think of the most recent developments in U.S.-Cuba relations, which Obama has characterized as a ‘new beginning?’ Pick up a copy of this week’s Indy to hear views from exiles who fled the (not yet) Communist country as early as 1959, and as recently as last year.
North Carolina, national, news Barack Obama, cuba
Lisa Sorg ·
12 Apr 2009, 9:44 AM ·
Comment
Yesterday’s Nest Egg Hunt at Bicentennial Plaza in Raleigh drew more than 150 people who support the Obama administration’s restructuring of the banking system and his economic plan.
The demonstration was part of a National Day of Action to call for transparency and accountability in the financial industries and, according to organizers, “to restore capitalism to serve ordinary people like you and me.”
The local event was sponsored by Raleigh Forward, who also tweeted the event and shared their photos.
It’s time to cue music for Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper’s psycho-hillbilly song from the ’80s, “I Hate Banks.” Here’s some of the lyrics: 
By Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper
I hate banks…
I just can’t stand ‘em.
Gimme a shovel & man I’ll plant ‘em.
Six feet under thats where they belong…
I hate banks is the name of this song.
I think I’ll rob myself one or two…
Yeah I hate banks, yeah, how ’bout you?
Well…lend me a nickel & lend me a dime,
repossess my house any old time.
Financial institutions think they’re so high faluting…
Just a bunch of fruits in three piece suits,
trying to steal all my loot.
Things are smelling pretty rank,
We must be near a stinking bank.
Smells worse than Rockefeller’s feet,
Wall Street can eat my meat
I hate banks is the name of this song.
I think I’ll rob myself one or two…
Yeah I hate banks, yeah, how ’bout you?
Well…lend me a nickel & lend me a dime,
repossess my house any old time.
Financial institutions think they’re so high faluting…
Just a bunch of fruits in three piece suits,
trying to steal all my loot.
Things are smelling pretty rank,
We must be near a stinking bank.
Raleigh, business, news banks, Barack Obama, Nest Egg Hunt, Raleigh Forward
Bob Geary ·
12 Mar 2009, 6:15 PM ·
Comment
… here’s your chance.
March 31, at NC A & T University in Greensboro. It’s a White House Regional Forum on Health Reform.
Like “American Idol,” but for policy geeks.
And if you’ve got the best idea, it’s possible you could a prize.
See, the Obama Administration wants to hear how you would handle do it — apparently they’ve misplaced their copy of John Edwards’ health-care plan since he fell from grace. (Along with the glowing reviews.)
So they’re going around the country listening to all sides in the health-care debate, sort of the way the Clintons did it back in ‘93. But not so much, because that was all buttoned-up, and this time it’ll be right there on the intertubes.
Gov. Bev Perdue is fronting the Greensboro event. Some details from her press office below, including how to sign up. Continue reading »
North Carolina, economy, national, politics Barack Obama, Bev Perdue, health care reform, John Edwards, Paul Krugman
Lisa Sorg ·
3 Mar 2009, 1:42 PM ·
Comment
The Barack Obama campaign mobilized thousands of volunteers who helped him win North Carolina, but a new analysis by Democracy North Carolina found that five of the 10 counties with the most intense voter activism favored John McCain.
Of the top 10 counties on the Voter Activism Index, five sided with Obama: Chatham, Wake, Forsyth, Orange and Durham; five favored McCain: Person, Moore, Davie, Transylvania and Nash. Continue reading »
Chatham County, Durham County, Orange County, Wake County, politics Barack Obama, Democracy North Carolina, John McCain, voter activism
Matt Saldaña ·
25 Feb 2009, 9:49 PM ·
Comment
UPDATE (2/27/09): As expected, Obama pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, and leave behind 35,000 to 50,000 “transitional” troops through December 2011. “Let me say this as plainly as I can. By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” NYT quotes Obama as saying today at Camp Lejeune.
The White House has announced that Barack Obama will deliver a speech in North Carolina Friday, at the marine corps base Camp Lejeune. Reuters reports that Obama is expected to make a major announcement about the timetable of withdrawing American forces from Iraq, noting that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama had not yet made a final decision on a withdrawal timetable, and declined to offer specifics on the speech.
However, The New York Times and other news outlets–including Agence France Presse–are reporting that Obama will set August 2010 as the date for withdrawal, a slightly longer timetable than originally promised, and also that Obama may leave behind as many as 50,000 troops past that date, to be reassigned as “Advisory Training Brigades.” Those reports relied on anonymous Pentagon sources.
North Carolina, national Barack Obama, Camp LeJuene, Iraq
