Alice Chasan

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Alice Chasan served as editor and associate publisher of Shelterforce from 2007 to 2008.

News in the Future Tense

What a great attention-grabber. Dated July 4, 2009, the lead story in the edition of The New York Times handed out to commuters in...

After Nov. 4: Bringing It All Back Home

Interviewed on “The Takeaway” this morning, Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain, had this to say about how President-elect...

They Heard the News Today

My first email of the first day after the election of Barack Obama as president came from Serbia. Its sender is a longtime colleague,...

The Vote Rocked Me

I arrived at my polling place this morning, not knowing what kind of scene to expect. After days of TV images of snaking lines,...

Frayed Democratic Fabric? Try Tissue of Lies

In his post today on Rooflines, my colleague Matthew Hersh lays out the “What If” scenarios aswirl in the zeitgeist in the weeks leading...

Lions and Lambs or Vultures: Who’ll Prevail?

The House Financial Services Committee met this morning to begin, ever so tentatively, to redraw the regulatory landscape for the financial services industry in...

McCain’s Nashville Flatline

John McCain’s newly unveiled idea — a buyout of “bad mortgages” to the tune of $300 million — left a lot of viewers bemused...

McCain’s Bad-Mortgage Buyout

The second presidential debate just ended. John McCain threw out a new policy proposal tonight that came as a surprise: He announced that he’d direct...

Left Behind by the “Rescue”

At week’s end, there’s not much good news, but instead a world of pain to report. As of today, Americans have a “rescue plan” that...

Does HUD’s “Hope” Float?

Today’s New York Times editorial titled “Show Us the Hope” slams the inadequacies of both the Bush administration’s and Congress’s attention to the plight...

Disappearing Ink: Why No Coverage of the Demonstrations?

CNN this morning reported that grass-roots groups are organizing demonstrations across the country against what they’re calling the Bush administration’s “cash for trash” bailout...

Congress Can’t Give House Room to Paulson’s Section 8

Listening to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson testify before the Senate Banking Committee, I’m marveling at his insistence to Republican Sen. Mel Martinez,...

Toxic Assets: The Diagnosis Comes Too Late for Foreclosed Homeowners

From AFP today: The 700-billion dollar Wall Street bailout plan, put together last week by the U.S. administration, would allow the U.S .Treasury to sell...

When Worldviews Collide

John McCain reinvented himself — again — this morning. And the latest avatar is the reincarnation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Speaking in Green Bay, Wisc....

Why Has Palin Cooled Toward ARDOR?

Let’s take a closer look at GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s record on community organizing. It seems, as I said in my previous...

North to Alaska—Where Organizers Roam

Very enlightening : I came across an article today on the Minnesota Independent, an online news source, titled Palin’s Maligning Aside, Alaska’s Rife with Community...

Who You Gonna Call?

Hurricane Gustav blew into the Gulf Coast on Labor Day weekend, almost three years to the day that Katrina brought its misery to New...

Service Forum: McCain’s Moment of Truthiness

Just finished watching ServiceNation’s presidential forum on national service, and I’m here to give credit where it’s due: Judy Woodruff asked John McCain to...

Making Lemonade

Here’s a great example of the law of unintended consequences: The McCain campaign’s sour, distortive targeting of community organizing in an attempt to marginalize Barack...

McCain’s Service Problems

I hope the moderators press McCain on his campaign’s assault on community organizing and how it jibes with the convention’s theme of “service.”