“I believe very strongly that our protections under the Constitution depend on the transparency of our government. Because it’s in the dark spaces, it’s in the unlit spaces of government activity that abuses occur, or can occur,” said Timothy Naftali, an associate professor at New York University.Continue reading
“The regime’s brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, not only endangers the Syrian people themselves, but also generates instability throughout the region.”Continue reading
Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. King, a Baptist minister and civil-rights activist, had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States, beginning in the mid-1950s. Among his many efforts, King headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Through his activism and inspirational speeches, he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the United States, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, among several other honors. He was assassinated in April 1968 and continues to be remembered as one of the most influential and inspirational African-American leaders in history.Continue reading
Born 8 September 1941 in Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders attended James Madison High School, Brooklyn College and the University of Chicago. After graduating in 1964, he moved to Vermont. In 1981, he was elected (by 10 votes) to the first of four terms as mayor of Burlington. Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and at Hamilton College in upstate New York before his 1990 election as Vermont’s at-large member in Congress. The Almanac of American Politics calls Sanders a “practical and successful legislator.”
Throughout his career he has focused on the shrinking American middle class and the growing income and wealth gaps in the United States. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Bernie Sanders in 2014 passed legislation reforming the VA health care system. Congressional Quarterly said he was able “to bridge Washington’s toxic partisan divide and cut one of the most significant deals in years.”Continue reading
Thomas Perez (Thomas Edward Perez), an American politician, attorney, Chair of the Democratic National Committee since February 2017 was born on 7 October 1961. Perez, a civil-rights lawyer who served as deputy of the Clinton DOJ civil-rights division, has spent most of his career in government service enforcing anti-discrimination laws.
Perez has strong labor support and served as Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) labor secretary from 2007 until 2009, when he was tapped for the Justice Department position. Thomas Perez, a longtime Takoma Park resident, also served on the Montgomery County Council and was the first Latino elected to the council. He has been the key official under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. handling civil rights cases, the centerpiece of what Holder hopes will be his legacy.Continue reading
Born in Michigan on March 12, 1947, Willard Mitt Romney founded the investment firm Bain Capital and later ran for the Massachusetts Senate in 1994, losing to incumbent Ted Kennedy. Romney took over the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and helmed a successful 2002 Olympic Games. He became governor of Massachusetts in 2003 and made a run for the Republican nomination in the 2008 election, losing to candidate John McCain. Romney made a second run for the U.S. presidency in 2012, with U.S. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, but was ultimately defeated by President Barack Obama in a tight race.
Willard Mitt Romney attended the prestigious Cranbrook School before receiving his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in 1971. He attended Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, and received both a law degree and a Master of Business Administration degree in 1975.Continue reading
Orrin Hatch (Orrin Grant Hatch) was born on March 22, 1934 to Jesse and Helen Hatch. One of Senator Hatch’s particularly noteworthy achievements on the Judiciary Committee is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993—a bill he co-authored with the late Senator Ted Kennedy.
Over more than four decades of public service, Senator Orrin Hatch has established himself as a leading conservative voice in the United States Senate. As the upper chamber’s most senior Republican, he currently serves as President Pro Tempore and as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. In this capacity, he has fought to create jobs and strengthen the economy by reforming the tax code and opening up foreign markets to American exports.Continue reading
Marc Lamont Hill was born on 17 December 1978. Marc Lamont Hill an American, a renowned scholar, journalist and social commentator grew up in North Philadelphia and attended Temple University. Hill received his undergraduate degree from Temple in 2000, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the intersections between media, culture, politics and education.
Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. An activist, social critic, and one of the nation’s most notable African American leaders, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is among a new generation of public intellectuals who move with equal ease between Faculty Row and Fraternity Row, “the street” and Main Street.Continue reading
Heather Nauert was born on 27 January 1970. Heather Ann Nauert is an American journalist and government official serving as Spokesperson for the United States Department of State since April 24, 2017, appointed by President Donald Trump.
She is a former ABC News correspondent as well as a past news presenter on the Fox News program Fox & Friends.
As a journalist, Nauert covered the 9/11 terror attacks, the war in Iraq and four presidential elections.Continue reading
Born on February 11, 1953, in Midland, Texas, Jeb Bush is the son of George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president, and the brother of George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. president. Jeb Bush moved up the ranks in Florida politics in the 1980s and ’90s before securing the state’s governorship in 1998. The Republican remained as Florida’s governor until 2007. The following year, many speculated that he’d run for the U.S. Senate, but that did not occur. In June 2015, Bush announced his run for the U.S. presidency, only to bow out in February 2016.
Bush left Texas and moved to Florida in the early 1980s to work as a real estate developer and broker. In 1987 and 1988, he held his first government post, serving as Florida’s secretary of commerce. Bush made his first run for public office as the Republican candidate for the state’s governorship in 1994. He lost the election by a small margin to Governor Lawton Chiles. Bush, however, was victorious on his second try in 1998.Continue reading