blogging the beltway

Against the political backdrop of the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, a mission that President Obama ordered a year ago to the day, he traveled to Afghanistan on Tuesday to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The agreement, which had been negotiated between the two nations for 20…

After the barrage of new voting laws that passed in about 30 states last year, making it harder to vote — by placing tight restrictions on voter-registration drives, requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification, reducing early voting periods and, in one case, adding a provision stating that precinct workers don’t have to tell voters…

On Saturday night, President Obama had the ballroom of the Washington Hilton rolling (and himself, since he laughed at a few of his own jokes) at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. His comedy routine at the annual event, which helps fund scholarships for D.C. journalism students, wasn’t quite as biting as last year,…

Civil rights activists have long railed against the “collateral consequences” that follow people with arrest or conviction records: statutes disqualifying them from housing, student loans and social services. One of the most impossible barriers, however, is many employers’ refusal to hire people with criminal records even years after they’ve completed their sentences. Despite 1987 and…

Any element of surprise in the Republican primaries is gone. In fact, the big news would have been if Mitt Romney hadn’t won Tuesday’s contests in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and New York. But with Rick Santorum out of the race and at this point facing only token competition from Newt Gingrich and Ron…

April is Minority Health Month, designated by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health to raise awareness of health disparities and to encourage action to reduce them. On Tuesday the Office of Minority Health hosted a White House panel focused on the ways the Obama administration is helping communities take action,…

Earlier this week the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy released the 2012 National Drug Control Strategy. The document is guided by the same principle as its 2011 strategy — that addiction is a disease to be treated — and thus encourages prevention, treatment and alternative drug courts instead of the mass incarceration…

Brace yourself, borrowers of federal student loans: On July 1 more than 7.4 million students with federal loans will see their interest rates double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent — unless Congress steps in to keep them at the current rate. “For each year Congress allows the rate to double, the average student with…

On Tuesday the American Legislative Exchange Council — a conservative organization that has advanced the national spread of voter-ID and “Stand your ground” laws — made a surprising announcement. The group is shutting down its Public Safety and Elections task force, which focused on those controversial pieces of legislation. “We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections…

Most of the experts who testified on Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing — about the data, emotions, rationale and solutions surrounding racial profiling — agreed that targeting potential suspects on the basis of race, national origin or religion is just shoddy police work. But on the questions of how to stop the practice…