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Attorney General: Who’s Got Next?
Let the appointment games begin. It may not be the kitchen-table topic of choice, but President Barack Obama’s replacement choice for outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder will be one of the more significant decisions of his presidency. The list is long, but the politics are just getting started for what could be a noisy confirmation…
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Secret Service: You Can’t Slip Up With This President
More than a week after the world watched a deranged Omar Gonzalez somehow slip his way into what we thought was one of the most impregnable fortresses in the world, we find out that what actually happened was even worse. According to a Washington Post exclusive, not only did Gonzalez get across the White House…
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3 Theories on Holder: Why Is America’s 1st Black Attorney General Rolling Out?
That Attorney General Eric Holder was resigning was really no surprise to the perennial Washington watchers who have nothing better to do than track the lives of the politically famous. Sources were chattering quietly about it late last year, and the New Yorker’s eager legal eagle, Jeffrey Toobin, got something of a scoop on it…
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GOP Backs Early Voting—Just Not for Blacks
Before 2008, early voting was the “in thing” for wealthier, whiter, educated Republican voters. Then the Obama-campaign nerds mobilized it into a black thing, too. Go to church, get on a bus, go vote. And look who we got as president. Can’t have that, right? So instead of playing the long game and making a…
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Is the Black Vote Hillary Clinton’s for the Taking?
The 2016 presidential race hasn’t officially started yet, but we all know the presumptive contenders for party nominee. One political brand name stands above the rest: Hillary Clinton. It can’t get any better once they make TV dramas that are a spin-off of your life. But just like in 2008, when that brother with the…
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When Black Men Mess Up, Do We All Feel the Shame?
Let’s all keep it 100: The past week of black-man antics hit us like a brick to the face. All the big trending copy, breaking news and talk show leads morphed into one hellacious week of brothers just messing up. Overnight, it felt as if we became poster kids and ad campaigns for some of…
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It’s Time for a Recall Election in Ferguson
There’s no shortage of calls for racial healing or proposals for community initiatives in slowly back-to-normal Ferguson, Mo. But as the dust settles and the tear gas cannisters pile up in recycle bins, a malignant return to that special brand of Ferguson status quo may be what’s really happening. After everything that’s happened over the…
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After Ferguson, We Need a Working Definition of Racism
In the smoking wake of Ferguson’s fires, everybody wants a hearing. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), seeing a political opening, has already scheduled a September panel on the militarization of local police. Congressional Black Caucus members, mostly powerless on the House side, want their day of hearings, too. But wondering whether or not the Republican majority…
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When the World Blows Up, Just Blame Hip-Hop
It was only a matter of time. A violent convergence of domestic and international events has us all feeling as if the world is falling off its axis. Headlines telling of rioters rocking Ferguson, Mo., are intersected with constant flashes of black-masked Islamic State marauders leaving bloody trails of decapitated heads as they pillage the…
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5 Ways Police Should Rethink Their Training
Through all the nonstop rage, misery and obliterating hate consuming that infamous strip of West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Mo., it never stops circling back to a common question: What the hell is up with the police? Something’s going on with America’s cops, and it’s not looking good as slain black men pile up nationwide…
