Features
- Created on 29 May 2013
One on One With Obama Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett
To this day, the remembrance of an oral argument in law school gives her a ghastly uneasiness. But now she finds a way to joke about her abysmal experience and how she ultimately overcame her fear of public speaking. After all, it is the reason she didn't become a litigator and instead began working in public service.
Today, she has become one of the most respected and powerful women in the government. As Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, Valerie B. Jarrett runs the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and also chairs of the White House Council on Women and Girls.
Jarrett often highlights matters pertaining to women's issues in her White House blog and revealed to ADW the candid advice she gives to young women. "You can have it all, but not necessarily all at the same time," said Jarrett.
She cautioned the idea of expecting to have everything because "life is full of tradeoffs."
The last time ADW sat down and spoke with Jarrett, she was visiting Atlanta for the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday commemoration at Ebenezer Baptist Church. ADW's Kenya King caught up Jarrett again as she rounded out the White House's fifth stop at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) graduation ceremonies this spring.
ADW: We know that President Obama made available $850 million for education reform for HBCUs. Are there any new initiatives?
Jarrett: We're going to continue to try to address their important needs. You're right. He did make [resources] at a time when our federal budget is shrinking. He made sure he made additional resources available because he believes so strongly that they are the pillars of academic excellence, not just within the black community because the graduates go on and they impact our society as a whole, so we're always working with the HBCUs and the President's Advisory Council to think of new and innovative ways of supporting them.
ADW: As a woman in public policy, what do think women need to be success at policymaking?
Jarrett: I think you need intellectual rigor and a creative mind. The same thing that men need. I think you have to look at things not as they are but as they should be and then go through the analysis of what it takes get from where we are to where we want to go. Intellectual curiosity is an essential ingredient of sound policy. That's how we're constantly improving. Looking at how we've done things and then thinking what's a different way, what's a better way. One of the things President Obama always does is that he pushes us to find new solutions. Constantly. What are the best practices that we can examine and see how we can take them to scale. That's one of the real important challenges of public policy at the federal level. Often the best ideas come from the ground, people who are trying things in communities. How do we lift those up and take them to scale.
And you have examples here in Atlanta – redevelopment projects that have worked really well. Where public housing has been torn down and mixed income communities have been born again. I visited the Harlem Children's Zone in New York not long ago and what Geoffrey Canada is doing there is something that would be terrific if communities all over the country could do that. One of the exciting things about working in the White House is you get to have this bird's eye view of what works and what doesn't work all over the country.
ADW: It seems that Congress doesn't work with the President as much on certain policies he desires put in place. Are there any executive orders he would like to implement before the end of his term?
Jarrett: Well, he's constantly looking for new executive orders that he can sign. We can send you the details in connection with our effort to get sensible gun control legislation a couple of months ago after the tragedy in Newtown, and Aurora and Chicago, all over the country. We pushed congress to pass a law that would provide for background checks. At the same time the president signed 23 executive orders that would give him authority to do things within the federal government – he and the federal agencies – to help streamline the process and make it more efficient to get guns out of the hands of people who should not have them and so we're always looking at ways of doing it. We're pushing for immigration reform right now, but he signed an executive order that allowed the Dream Act children to stay in this country. That's a stop gap measure. Doing whatever is in within his power and there are a host of other executive orders that he will be looking at. Oftentimes, the most comprehensive solution can be achieved through legislation.
ADW: And congratulations on the Equal Futures Partnership.
Jarrett: Oooh, that's a huge thing on an international stage. It's so heartening to see...in September of last year, we started with 12 countries and now we have nearly 20 and counting. We had a terrific event maybe a month ago at the World Bank where all of the finance ministers from those countries came out. I thought that was so important because obviously the economic piece of women's empowerment is vitally important. We're working with both the economic as well as the political empowerment. We're convinced if we have more women in congress, we'd have a lot more progress made.
ADW: What's next for you after this term? Do you have any political aspirations?
Jarrett: I do not have any political aspirations. At this point, all of my effort goes into trying to see what we can do to move our country forward. I should, since I'm giving commencement speeches, encouraging them to plan, I should have planned my own life, but I'm just going to see what happens next. But this is definitely the pinnacle. It doesn't get much better than this.
- Created on 28 May 2013
9-Year-Old Activist Asean Johnson Stuns Crowd at Chicago School Closings Protest
Asean Johnson, 9, a student at Chicago’s Marcus Garvey Elementary School, electrified a crowd of hundreds speaking at a rally to protest the closing of 54 Chicago Public Schools by a board appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama.
Rahm thinks we are all toys…he is not caring about our schools; h
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- Created on 24 May 2013
Navy Veteran Cites the Advantages of Hiring Service Men and Women on Memorial Day
When Atlanta resident Chaquita Loveless joined the Navy at age 19 in 1990, she wanted to see the world, she wanted to train for a profession, and she wanted to serve her country. It never crossed her mind that she would ever have trouble finding a job.
Imagine her chagrin when, 23 years later, with the service, the training and the world exploration behind her, the hardest thing she had to do was find fulfilling work outside the military.
With thousands of former military men and women, many of them African American, pouring into the work force, employers need to be prepared to reach out to them with support and employment. Just in 2012 the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that more than 20,000 new African-American veterans are unemployed.
"I don't think employers have a good understanding of how well the skills we learn in the military can translate to work outside," she says. Having risen through the ranks in the service from E-One -- "the lowest of the low," she says with a smile -- to Senior Chief Petty Officer and then Chief Warrant Officer, job hunting out in the world was a "humbling experience."
Now, after going back to school to get her Bachelors in Business Administration, Loveless has found work she enjoys with a team of veterans at the Bobby Dodd Institute AT&T call center. "We've turned this center into the Number One international Call center for AT&T," she said proudly. "It's what we do."
"In the service," she continues, "We learn integrity, discipline, time management, and accountability. Our mantra is 'teamwork makes the dream work.'"
Service men and women also learn flexibility, she added, noting that through her key job in the Navy was information systems and satellite communications on board aircraft carriers like the U.S.S. Nimitz, she could also shift skills easily and has even driven a ship.
"I guess I just want to ask employers to give some thought to us this Memorial Day. Let us get our foot in the door," she says. "Let us show what we can do."
- Created on 24 May 2013
Florida Teen Rejects Plea Deal in Controversial Same-Sex Case
(CNN) -- Eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt, charged with a crime for having sex with a 14-year-old girl, rejected a deal Friday that would have required her to plead guilty to child abuse, according to Hunt's attorney.
Hunt was charged with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious battery after the parents of the 14-year-old went to authorities. Hunt's family says their relationship was consensual, but in Florida a person under the age of 16 is not legally able to give consent to sex.
If Hunt is convicted, she could go to prison for 15 years -- a reality that touched off a maelstrom of controversy across the country this past week. The case became widely known when Hunt's family began an online campaign in defense of their daughter.
The plea deal from the Indian River County prosecutor's office would have required Hunt to plead guilty to felony child abuse, spend two years "on community control," which usually involves strict supervision, followed by one year of probation. According to the plea deal document, during her probation, Hunt would have had to agree to stay away from the 14-year-old, and to provide her probation officer with immediate access to her Internet and telephone communication.
In a statement saying that Hunt was rejecting the plea deal, her attorney, Julia Graves, wrote:
"This is a situation of two teenagers who happen to be of the same sex involved in a relationship. If this case involved a boy and girl, there would be no media attention to this case.
"Our client is a model citizen. She has been placed in an environment of school with her classmates where they go to school together, have lunch together, and play on the same team and are allowed to have communication and contact without barriers. Then when something develops between the two as a result of this environment created by the state, it leads to criminal prosecution."
"If this incident occurred 108 days earlier when she was 17, we wouldn't even be here," the attorney wrote.
Earlier this week, Hunt cried in front of news crews.
"I'm scared of losing my life, the rest of my life," she said, "not being able to go to college or be around kids, be around my sisters and my family."
In response, Charles Sullivan Jr., the attorney for the 14-year-old girl's family said they had been hoping the case would be resolved by now.
Now the 14-year-old girl may have to take the witness stand if the case goes to court, Sullivan said.
"No parent wants their child to have to testify in court, but unfortunately the reality of our system is we have a system where a defendant has the right to have all the witnesses present. It's just the aspect of our law," Sullivan said. "It's a difficult process but it's a necessary process in our system of justice."
The case has been a lightning rod for controversy after Hunt's family went public on Facebook, describing their daughter's case and essentially accusing the victim's family of going after their daughter because she is gay.
The victim's family said that isn't true; they are only trying to protect their 14-year-old.
The American Civil Liberties Union has spoken out in defense of Hunt and an online petition by Change.org had attracted some 270,000 signatures by Friday afternoon. They say the punishment does not equal the crime.
Despite the online furor, a case like this isn't all that unusual, said David LaBahn, president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, a national professional group.
"Prosecutors get these kinds of cases all the time, and it's almost always parents who come to them saying that something like this has happened," said LaBahn, who worked as a trial attorney in California for 10 years and focused on prosecuting sex crimes for four years.
The amount of difference between the alleged perpetrator's age and the victim's age weighs heavily in whether a prosecutor moves forward on a case, he said.
"If you had an 18- and 17-year-old, there may be some investigation," he said.
"If the 17-year-old says it was consensual, that would probably be the end of it and you wouldn't have charges."
But in this case, 18 and 14 is a wide gap, he said. "According to law in Florida, this is a crime."
It doesn't matter -- and shouldn't matter -- what people in an online community who don't have the investigative details of a case believe, he said.
He drew a comparison to the Jodi Arias case currently under way in Arizona. Many people -- even those on the jury -- said they couldn't conceive how a petite woman who claimed she'd been the victim of domestic violence could repeatedly stab her boyfriend, as she admits doing.
"As a prosecutor you cannot be influenced by anything other than the facts," he said.
If the Hunt case goes to trial, the prosecutor is likely to try to put on witnesses who can show that the 14-year-old was damaged psychologically by engaging in sex at such a young age, and that she wouldn't have normally done such a thing.
In an interview with CNN affiliate WPEC, Jim and Laurie Smith insisted that the girls' gender has nothing to do with the case. They are concerned about ages.
"Our daughter was 14, and this girl was 18," said Jim Smith.
According to the Smiths, they twice warned Hunt to stop.
"I had another adult, who is a mother, she came to me and said, 'Ms. Smith, you need to know this. She said, 'We told Ms. Hunt to leave your daughter alone but they are in a relationship. And, she's 18.'"
Laurie Smith said she was shocked. Her daughter was just too young, she thought.
The 14-year-old began to act out, the Smiths told WPEC.
Then one weekend morning the Smiths went to their daughter's bedroom and discovered she was missing.
They panicked, thinking someone took their daughter or that she was hurt. "Her running away was the furthest thing from our mind," said Jim Smith. "We thought ... you hear about kids getting abducted from their homes."
But they later learned that Hunt had picked their daughter up, they told WPEC.
"We had no other alternative but to turn to the law, use it basically as a last resort," Jim Smith said.
Bloggers have called Laurie Smith a gay basher and accused her of being abusive to her daughter. Numerous news reports have asked whether the Smiths went after the teen because of her sexual orientation.
But Smith says her goal is to protect her 14-year-old, and she will not relent.
"I will be an advocate of what she needs," the mother told WPEC. "The stories that people are saying ... I love my daughter. ... I'm willing to do whatever to protect her."
"This whole story about you blaming Kate for making your daughter gay ... where did that come from?" a reporter asked the parents.
"I don't know. It didn't come from us. That's not how we feel," Jim Smith answered.
Still, Hunt's supporters say she is being prosecuted because she was in a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex. A Facebook support page the Hunt family set up called "Free Kate" has gathered more than 47,000 names.
The online petition grew from 150,000 signatures Thursday to nearly 270,000 early Friday afternoon. The petition asks prosecutors to drop the case.
But not everyone who is posting online might have the facts of the case. A glance at postings on Facebook and Twitter show that some people are getting the ages of the girls wrong. Others have posted erroneously that Hunt is being prosecuted for numerous other charges.
Regardless, everyone seems upset about the effect a felony child abuse conviction would have on Hunt, if she agreed to the plea deal.
LaBahn told CNN that a felony child abuse conviction would mean that Hunt would have to disclose her felony conviction on employment applications and she could never serve on a jury. She would be prohibited from voting for a period of time, though each state has different time frames for that rule, the attorney said. She may not be able to secure student loans either, he said, and she might not be allowed to adopt or obtain a childcare license.
Graves, Hunt's attorney, had earlier asked that the charges be reduced to a misdemeanor.
"This is a life sentence for behavior that is all too common, whether male, female, gay, straight," Graves said at a Wednesday news conference.
"High school relationships may be fleeting," she said, "but felony convictions are forever."
CNN's Sara Ganim and Kim Segal contributed to this report.
- Created on 23 May 2013
Three Top Tips for Summer Travel
(StatePoint) As families nationwide are packing their gear and heading out by car, plane and boat, recent data suggests that this summer travel season could be substantially busier than in years past.
According to a survey conducted by the Professional Association of Innkeepers International and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, nearly 60 percent of innkeepers received increased inquiries for early summer, versus a similar timeframe last year.
“Based on the data I’ve seen and what I’m hearing from my colleagues in the travel industry, I anticipate more people will be vacationing this season, arguably more than they have been over the past five years,” points out Emmy Award-winning journalist and travel expert Rudy Maxa. “So with all those travelers hitting the open road, how can you and your family navigate your way to a fun summer vacation that’s also affordable?”
To help, Maxa, who is a contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler, has teamed with Enterprise Rent-A-Car to unveil a series of top summer travel tips. Here are three key pieces of advice that he’s sharing:
Think Outside the (Computer) Box
Consider conducting travel research offline. The Internet has been a boon for travelers, but sometimes there is too much information out there, which can cause confusion.
There are innovative ways to take advantage of personal knowledge from actual humans. For a modest fee, consider hiring a travel writer who is familiar with the place you want to visit. These writers, available through services such as FortNighter.com, can help customize your vacation based upon your personal preferences.
Use Loyalty Miles and Points
Accumulate and use award miles and points the smart way. Explore the lesser-known world of resources, such as MileValue.com, which publish free, regular advice to help individuals accumulate hundreds of thousands of miles and points.
Also, take some time to understand your credit card rewards program. Oftentimes, there are ways to accumulate maximum miles and points through everyday purchases, versus actually traveling.
Car rental loyalty programs can also yield free rentals when needed most. For example, Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s loyalty program, Enterprise Plus, allows members to earn points that are redeemable at any time for free rental days on any available vehicle at participating locations throughout North America.
Watch Your Money
Don’t change money abroad. Use your ATM card but be sure you remember your PIN as a series of numbers, not letters. Many ATMs overseas don’t have keypads with letters. And, no, the number “1” is not where you find the letters “A, B, C.”
And, if your credit card charges foreign transaction fees of up to 3 percent on every purchase, explore other cards that may give you more purchasing power abroad.
More free travel tips from Maxa can be found at http://aboutus.enterprise.com/summertravel/.
No matter if you are answering the call of exotic islands or hitting the road closer to home, there are ways to turn your vacation into a grand getaway.
