Politics

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), whose district includes Ferguson, and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) are offering a reward for the capture of the individual or individuals involved in the the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson early Thursday. Clay and Cleaver are offering $3,000 for information leading to the capture of the person or persons.…

When New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that his office had cut a deal with the three big credit bureaus—Experian, Equifax and TransUnion—to improve the customer experience, the news shook the financial-services world into a frenzy. “In today’s world, the consumer’s input is less important than the bank or collector’s input,” John…

Little-known fact: The crab state of Maryland has one of the highest percentages of black population in the United States. Theoretically, you might think that that would make the state one of the more powerful black political blocs in the land. Yet while the state is nearly 33 percent African American, it’s never had an African-American governor…

On the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala., President Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech before an estimated crowd of 40,000 on the Edmund Pettus Bridge that placed honoring Selma’s legacy at the cornerstone of his remaining presidency. Obama’s strong speech came on a day of commemoration, which featured a host of visiting political…

It’s never too hard to feel as if you’re having your political power snatched away from you. But the real challenge is proving it—all there in one accessible place, all by the numbers. As we reach the 50th-anniversary mark of Selma, Ala.’s “Bloody Sunday”—the indisputable tipping point that got the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed—the debate…

I suppose it’s possible that a different rhetorical approach hasn’t yet occurred to Ben Carson, but I’m here to tell him that it really is conceivable for a politician to express his opposition to same-sex marriage without resorting to spiteful and derisive language about gays and lesbians in the process. And that argument probably goes…

The two most-senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus—Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), 85, and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), 84—were honored at the CBC Foundation’s annual Avoice Heritage Celebration Dinner in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night. Both were presented with the Distinguished Pioneer Award as founding members of the CBC. Conyers came to Congress in 1965 and Rangel…

According to a Field Poll (pdf) released last Wednesday, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leads a crowded field of potential candidates for California’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2016. It’s a notable occurrence that Rice, a Republican who has served in two White House administrations, has support from 49 percent of voters in a Democratic-stronghold…

The two-term former mayor of New York City who couldn’t even make it through the first quarter of a Republican presidential primary just called the two-term president of the United States un-American. Digging into his bag of bigoted ad-libs, Rudy Giuliani couldn’t help scratching his racist itch during a recent “off-the-record” fundraising dinner for 2016…