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Looking for a Job? Congress Doesn’t Seem to Care
Lawmakers are in a knot over everything from the Affordable Care Act to finding a rare congressional kumbaya moment for a budget deal. But perhaps you haven’t noticed—it seems as if the last thing anyone in Washington, D.C., wants to talk about is employment. That’s fairly strange, considering it’s still rather rough out there as…
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Don’t Bet Against a Right-Wing Third Party in 2016
Don’t say I didn’t tell you: Two years from now, the GOP will officially split into two parties, with traditional Republicans getting freed up to do their thing while a more robust Tea Party spin-off picks its own nominee for a presidential election that will be unlike any we’ve seen since Ross Perot’s wild ride…
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Why Black Folks Should Be Wary of Bill de Blasio
With all the chatter and excitement surrounding New York City’s black first lady, Chirlane McCray, you’d think it was verboten to talk about anything else when it comes to Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio. To hear the pundit class talk, you wouldn’t think de Blasio was elected—you’d think his wife was. Which is just fine—if all…
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Kanye’s Antics Make Him Look Worse Than Ever
At the risk of launching into yet another tired and curmudgeonly tirade on the failings of modern hip-hop, perhaps it’s time to launch into yet another tirade about black emcees. Once a cultural crowning achievement expressing social and political change, hip-hop continues its top-40 bling-pop descent into a purgatory of meaninglessness. It’s been equally captivating…
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We’re a ‘Selfie’ Nation With Selfie Politics, Too
We are now officially in the age of the “selfie.” Once the Oxford dictionaries named it as their 2013 Word of the Year, it’s has become as institutionally cemented in our lexicon as any other noteworthy catchphrase in our recent public consciousness. But a battle for the human soul now begins over what, exactly, selfies…
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Politicians Mess Up, but They Keep Their Jobs
What do Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford have in common? Each politician, along with other political brothers-in-arms, faces a serious credibility crisis. Charges of plagiarism have Paul looking like a Bluegrass State punk, just when he was coasting along toward his 2016 presidential ambitions. And what about Ford? It’s a great…
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If You Love It, Stop Calling It ‘Obamacare’
(The Root) — Here’s a fairly simple concept for supporters of that persistently troubled health care law with the glitchy website that runs as slow as a NetZero connection: Stop calling it “Obamacare.” For sure, that’s a tough pill for fan girls and boys to swallow. There are legions of stubborn partisan Democrats who want…
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Facebook and Twitter Slipped Us a Roofie
(The Root) — Funny thing happened on the way through the shutdown: While we were all understandably preoccupied with political chaos, Silicon Valley geeks were busily finding new ways to dismantle any notion of privacy on the Internet. Facebook, always on an odious quest to pull our digital pants down, eliminated the option for users…
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Obama, Cruz and Christie Walk Into a Bar
(The Root) — After all that, there were really no winners in the shutdown fight because there was no appreciable policy outcome. And come early February 2014, we’ll repeat it all over again since Republicans who didn’t get anything are going to want their pound of flesh in the next quarter. But looking over the…
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Backwoods Mentality Takes Over Congress
(The Root) — At some point, the federal government will reopen, and the country will go back to a kick-the-can paradigm that runs the budget on a series of back-to-back manufactured crises. This we know, since for the most part most people — left and right — accept the governing construct. But a larger philosophical…
