Today, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in what has been dubbed the Hobby Lobby case, a catch-all name for two separate cases—Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius.
On Thursday Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)—chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—told Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)—the committee’s ranking minority member—that he’s sorry for cutting off Cummings’ mic at a hearing on Wednesday before the Democrat had a chance to speak his piece.
On Wednesday the U.S. Senate voted 47-52 to reject President Barack Obama’s nomination of former NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorney Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division—with seven Democrats joining Republicans to prevent the president’s pick from moving forward.
If you read my profile in The Root of African-American Tea Partier Katrina Pierson on Tuesday, you know that in her bid to unseat incumbent House Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions in next week’s Texas congressional primary, she described herself as someone who “just wants the federal government to leave us alone.”
Today one of the biggest national drugstore chains announced something that would once have been unthinkable: It will cease selling one of its most in-demand items, simply because the company believes that’s the right thing to do.
Though the candidates rarely discussed poverty during the 2012 presidential election season, it now seems to have replaced the so-called war on women as the topic neither party can stop talking about. For the first time in my lifetime, Republicans and Democrats are trying to prove that they—not their opponents across…
The family of New York City Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio has already begun to emerge as a model American family for the new millennium. There is their multiracial makeup, comprised of de Blasio, who is white, his wife, Chirlane McCray, who is black, and their two biracial kids, Dante and Chiara. Though still rare in…
Apparently Rep. Jack Kingston has taken it upon himself to pick up where Mitt Romney left off in attempting to establish the GOP brand as officially synonymous with disdain for poor people. In a recent speech Kingston reportedly said of kids benefiting from free-lunch programs, "Why don't you have the kids pay a dime,…
This week the New York Times landed in the news in a way the paper probably wishes it had not. A reporter teased a story she was working on, and another outlet promptly published a link to said story before the New York Times did.
By any measure the last few months have not been a high point for the Obama administration. The rollout of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) has been a disaster of epic proportions. The technical glitches have been embarrassing, but the communications strategy accompanying it has been worse. It is as though the…
As the battle over whether employers can opt to decline to cover birth control on religious grounds heads to the Supreme Court, another lawsuit is further challenging what role religion can play in patient health care, or denial of care.
When your party’s presidential candidate can only muster a dismal 6 percent of black votes, 27 percent of Latino votes and 26 percent of Asian-American votes in the most recent election, one thing should be abundantly clear: You can’t expect to solve that problem with a tweet.
Those who know me well know that despite the fact that I make most of my living writing about politics, I almost never watch political talk shows, including those on which I sometimes appear. I almost never read comments on pieces that I write or pieces in which I’m mentioned, unless my mother specifically says I…
Sasha Obama has done it again. Weeks ago the youngest first daughter wore a sweater in public that ended up selling out shortly thereafter. Now her recent ensemble at her father’s official Thanksgiving Turkey-pardoning press conference has also generated headlines, and style watchers are anticipating that it may spark…
Despite the seemingly endless bad press that the rollout of the Affordable Care Act has received in recent weeks, supporters of the Obama administration and “Obamacare” could take comfort in one thing: Aside from Sen. Ted Cruz et al’s blustering, overturning Obamacare was virtually impossible. That is, virtually…
The 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination generated extensive media coverage of what happened that fateful day in Dallas, fresh discussion of conspiracy theories about who was really responsible and nostalgia for the glamour of “Camelot,” in particular the 35th president and his iconic wife,…
Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid has generated most of the headlines for his willingness to “go nuclear,” specifically his willingness to, as the publication Politico put it, take the “unprecedented step of gutting Senate filibuster rules for presidential nominees on a straight party-line vote.” The move, which…
Yesterday the president said what every American not living under a rock already knew: “I mean, we fumbled the rollout on this health care law.” He also stated, “I think it’s legitimate for them to expect me to have to win back some credibility on this health care law in particular, and on a whole range of these…
In a brand-new policy role, first lady Michelle Obama is getting behind President Obama’s goal to ensure that the United States produces the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by 2020. And when it comes one part of that initiative—motivating kids in underserved communities to do whatever it takes to…
Thanks to the book Game Change, which captured the behind-the-scenes drama of the 2008 presidential campaign, authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are now as feared among those keeping political secrets as Karinne “Superhead” Steffans is feared among the rappers and athletes worried about being name-checked in her…
