Politics
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UN: Prosecute Bush Officials Who OK’d Torture at CIA Detention Camps
The U.S. Senate recently released a report detailing how the CIA used enhanced interrogation techniques on al-Qaida suspects after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the United Nations is now calling for the top officials in the George W. Bush administration who sanctioned those techniques to be brought up on charges and prosecuted, the BBC reports. “U.N.…
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Assessing the Impact of Voter-Suppression Laws in the 2014 Midterms
On Nov. 4, 2014, in Eggleston, Va., a 93-year-old cancer patient named Virginia Whittaker arrived at her designated polling place after a doctor’s appointment. She produced her voter-registration card, some form of which she had been using in elections for the past 72 years. This time, however, she was turned away because she lacked valid…
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Body Cameras Are on the Way—but in Eric Garner’s Case, Would It Have Mattered?
“I can’t believe that in the 21st century in the United States of America, we can’t get a simple indictment for a murder of a man that was caught on videotape.” That’s what Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) told The Root in the wake of a Staten Island, N.Y., grand jury’s return of no indictment Wednesday…
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Justice Department Investigating Eric Garner’s Death
On Wednesday, shortly after demonstrators had started to converge on New York City’s Times Square to protest the grand jury decision not to charge a New York police officer in the choke hold death of Eric Garner, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department will open a criminal civil rights investigation. According to…
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NAACP LDF Goes Back to Court to Defend a Win for Fayette County, Ga.’s Black Voters
On Nov. 4, 2014, two things happened when voters took to the polls in Fayette County, Ga. First, voters participated in higher numbers than anywhere else in their state. Second, Georgia voters in the recently implemented majority-black district made history by electing their candidate of choice, the first-ever black woman to serve on the County Commission. African-American voters also elected a…
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Obama Meets With Leaders to Discuss Ferguson and OKs Funding for Police Body Cameras
President Barack Obama announced Monday his plans to tackle the “simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color.” The intended initiatives take into consideration the recent racial tensions that have been highlighted across the country as numerous boys and men of color have been seemingly inexplicably gunned down by…
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When It Comes to Ferguson, President Obama Could Take a Lesson From Cornel West
The fiery uprising in Ferguson, Mo., in response to the slaying of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown by former police Officer Darren Wilson has arguably signified an end to several things: apathy in the face of grave injustice; “peace” in the face of state-sanctioned killing of black people in America; and, according to Cornel West, “the…
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Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick on Ferguson and Running for President in 2016
Outgoing Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick has thought about himself in the White House. Like most of the protesting public, he also would have liked to see a grand jury indictment of Ferguson, Mo., Officer Darren Wilson, according to an interview he did over the weekend. “I think a trial and the transparency of a…
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Obama: I Will Veto Permanent Tax Breaks for Corporations
President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to veto a package of tax breaks that Republicans send his way if they don’t alter the parts that provide “permanent tax breaks for businesses,” the New York Times reports. “The president would veto the proposed deal because it would provide permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting…
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Obama Asks Ferguson Protesters to Gather Peacefully as Violence Erupts
President Barack Obama addressed the nation shortly after it was announced that Ferguson, Mo., Officer Darren Wilson would not be criminally charged on any counts in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. The president called for peace, echoing Michael Brown Sr.’s words earlier this week in a video message. “First and foremost we…