Politics

The sudden resignation of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) may have been a House of Cards-like script waiting in the lurch, but it was the last thing we saw coming the day after Pope Francis’ mic drop before Congress. Current House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is favored to take over the speakership, even if…

Elizabeth Warren is not running for president. But based on the dazzling speech she recently delivered on racial and economic justice, she most definitely should. Sen. Warren (D-Mass.) furthered our national conversation about race with a bold speech linking racial equality, public policy, economic justice and American history. Warren’s #BlackLivesMatter speech Sunday at the Edward…

Why did Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) stun colleagues and announce that he would resign from Congress and the speakership? Was it because he focused on the wrong priorities, from his party’s perspective? No. Was it because he ignored the national debt or didn’t want to defund Planned Parenthood? No.   The real…

Jeb Bush’s recent comments in South Carolina about Democrats getting black people to vote for them by promising them “free stuff” during election season is a powerful reminder that a leading Republican presidential candidate is woefully ignorant about contemporary race relations and the history that’s shaped the racial-justice struggle. Ironically, the former governor of Florida’s…

We are finding ourselves in yet another visceral episode of American-style anti-Muslim rage. If your local science-hacking Muslim teenager isn’t handcuffed for trying to take clocks to their next level, your friendly soapboxing Republican presidential candidate is telling him he can’t be president. Not surprisingly, there has been a complicated morass of Islamophobia for some…

The “Will Joe Biden Run?” stories are popping up with greater frequency again after a weekend interview in which anonymous members of his staff suggested that he’s “more likely to run” than not. “More likely than not” usually isn’t enough to be convinced of anything (although that was enough to convict Tom Brady), but in the…

It’s a day during a week during a year, which means we were overdue for another fun round of “President Obama is a Muslim,” the game that is basically the conservatives’ version of spades. I actually wouldn’t even be surprised if some of them had regular “President Obama is a Muslim” game nights and potlucks,…

The Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., was the first debate of the real election season (post-Labor Day) and it was certainly an endurance contest for the candidates, the moderators and the viewers. In case you were watching the season finale of Born Again Virgin, don’t have cable or…

If you’ve never been to CBC Week before, you need to know, first off, that you better have your planning game tight. Every year in Washington, D.C., at the Washington Convention Center, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation hosts its Annual Legislative Conference, four days of what is, beautifully, way too much important discussion to handle.…