Politics
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Federal Student Aid Chief Quits After Refusing to Testify Before House Oversight Committee
James Runcie, chief operating officer of the Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid, quit his job suddenly Tuesday night and sent an email to his staff outlining his reasons for not wanting to work in the Trump administration. Runcie was an Obama-administration holdover who was first appointed in 2011 and then reappointed in…
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Ben Carson Thinks Poverty Is Just a ‘State of Mind’ Passed Down From Parents to Their Children
Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development, said in an interview released Wednesday that poverty is a “state of mind” children learn from their parents, and that a “certain mindset” contributes to people living in poverty. Carson, who was being interviewed on SiriusXM Radio by longtime friend Armstrong Williams, said, “I think poverty…
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Sheriff David Clarke Got Outed for Plagiarism on His Master’s Thesis, Unsure of Trump Administration Job Now
After a media outlet reported on plagiarism in his master’s degree thesis paper, Sheriff David Clarke is unsure of his standing with the Trump administration and whether or not he will actually get that job with the Department of Homeland Security that he’s been bragging about recently. On Saturday, CNN reported that there were 47…
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Yes, Trump Voters Will Stick With Him Forever
I have steadfastly avoided most “Trump voter” treatises in the news and the constant rush to check on his approval ratings. They reek of a fawning, confused attempt to normalize, empathize with and explain elements of American society that people of color, and white folks with even a rudimentary knowledge of history, have always known.…
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The GOP Keeps Quietly Purging Black Voters—and Democrats Aren’t Doing Anything About It
When both Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Marcel Groen and the North Carolina Democratic Party’s deputy executive director, Douglass Wilson, were asked about a little-known, but nasty, national voter-purge effort called “Interstate Crosscheck” in their respective states during a broadcast of Reality Check, this author’s daily public-affairs radio program on Philadelphia’s WURD, neither could say what…
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Bill Enforcing Texas Law Enforcement Requirement to Report Shootings Heading to Governor’s Desk
Updated Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 9:40 p.m. EDT: House Bill 245 passed the Texas Senate on Tuesday by a vote of 28-3. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law. Rep. Eric Johnson (D-Dallas), who wrote the bill, told The Root that he was proud of his…
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Joe Biden Sounds a Lot Like Bitter Bernie Sanders: Thinks Hillary Clinton Was Not a Great Candidate but He Is
Hindsight is 20-20, but with respect to the 2016 presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden seems to have cataracts when assessing what might have been. Last week, during an appearance at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas, Biden had this to say about former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “I never thought she…
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Trump Administration’s Failure to Recognize Haiti Is a Painful American Tradition
Editor’s note: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly announced Monday that he has extended Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status for six more months. He hinted that this shortened extension will be the last, saying that TPS recipients should take “time to attain travel documents and make other necessary arrangements for their ultimate departure from the United States.” …
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Trump’s New Budget Slashes Medicaid, Other Anti-Poverty Programs for Needy Families
Donald Trump is set Tuesday to reveal his first major budget proposal, and with it comes major cuts to Medicaid and changes to anti-poverty programs that would allow states to limit a range of benefits for needy families, something Congress has already been uneasy about. Trump’s plan follows through on a bill passed by House…
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Report: Trump Asked Intelligence Chiefs to Help Him Push Back Against FBI Probe Into Russian Collusion
In his capacity as president, Donald Trump reportedly asked two high-ranking national intelligence officials in March to help him push back against the FBI investigation into possible connections between his presidential campaign and the Russian government. Two current and two former intelligence officials spoke with the Washington Post on condition of anonymity, saying that Trump…