All Articles Tagged "liberal politics"
Left to Obama: You’re Not Doing It Right
(The Hill) — Anxiety over President Obama’s shift to the political center is threatening to alienate the White House’s liberal base. As Obama prepares Wednesday to outline his deficit reduction strategy, liberals worry he’ll embrace Medicare and Medicaid cuts as an olive branch to Republicans in advance of larger fights over the nation’s debt. The concerns have surfaced after the White House rankled lawmakers on the left by agreeing to a 2011 spending bill that slashes funding for a number of programs long favored by Democrats and embracing a controversial trade agreement with Colombia.
Liberal lawmakers already were irked with Obama’s decision to support upper-income tax cuts he campaigned against and to launch military operations in the Middle East without congressional approval. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) this week said Obama should start acting like a Democrat, while two left-wing grassroots groups warned their members could withhold funds from the president’s reelection campaign. The criticisms highlight the problem facing Obama, who is trying to lead from the center without alienating his political base. The White House strategy could help the president with independents, but risks leaving liberals at home in the fall of 2012.
Getting Published: Withering Black Left Political Voices
(News One) — When Ishmael Reed, professor emeritus at California State University-Berkeley, went shopping his book Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the N-Word Breakers to the American publishing establishment, he came away with one nagging question: Are Black writers with a strong left of center political bent an endangered species in post-racial America? Reed is the author of at least 40 books. His prodigious body of work includes novels, plays, and essay collections. He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975 and MacArthur Genius Award in 1998.
