blogging the beltway

Currently in the midst of its annual national convention in Kansas City, the NAACP today introduced a resolution condemning racism in American Tea Parties. Though exact details are currently sketchy, The Kansas City Star reports that the resolution will ask “all people of good will to repudiate the racism of the Tea Parties, and to…

NAACP President Ben Jealous today leveled weighty allegations of prejudiced hiring against BP, the embroiled oil company responsible for the Gulf oil spill. Following a recent trip to the Gulf region, Jealous, who is currently in Missouri for the NAACP’s national convention, says he is now convinced that BP is hiring workers of color to…

The Right’s coverage of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal has been as absurd as one might expect.  Wild allegations by former Justice Department official J. Christian Adams—that the DoJ under Obama has become racist toward whites—is stoking flames that have been burning at places like Fox News for months now, at least…

Last month, I questioned some of the motivations behind the bipartisan attacks on South Carolina Senate candidate Alvin Greene. Despite having won nearly 60 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, Greene—a less than qualified candidate, to be sure, but still the winning candidate—was immediately battered by politicians and the media alike, who insisted…

The Justice Department’s dismissal of voter intimidation charges against members of Philadelphia’s New Black Panther Party, a decision at the center of testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Tuesday, is one in which every American — particularly ones of color — should be interested. In sworn testimony, J. Christian Adams, a former Bush…

If you’ve not yet seen the most recent pictures of Naomi Campbell’s bald head, I suggest you click here and look. It’s amazing to see how grotesque a two-inch by two-inch unblemished patch of skin can be. It’s not hideous because it’s bald, mind you—Alek Wek is bald and gorgeous—but because the damage was so…

If anything good has come from the loss of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who died yesterday at the age of 92, it’s another milestone in the changing of America’s political face. As you no doubt know, there had never been a black president before Barack Obama. As you may not have known, however, for…

Now that General Stanley McChrystal has “resigned” following the publication of a Rolling Stone article showing him and his team to be recalcitrant to Obama administration authority, criticism of the Desert Storm veteran has been swift. Obama said he’d accepted the general’s resignation without protest, as it was “the right thing for our mission in…

Update: Tim Scott defeated Paul Thurmond in last night’s runoff election, making him almost a shoo-in to win his majority Republican district in November. Assuming he takes the general election, Scott will be the first black Republican in Congress since 2003, when Oklahoman J.C. Watts retired. As I mentioned above, this is a truly momentous…