Politics

  • Obama Backs Secret Service Amid 2 Security Breaches

    President Barack Obama expressed confidence in the agency charged with keeping him and his family safe Saturday after a man with a knife climbed a fence and made it into the White House before being apprehended, the Associated Press reports. It was the second such security breach in as many days. “The president has full…

  • Hillary Clinton’s Iowa Visit Spurs Speculation About a 2016 Presidential Run

    Hillary Clinton has some political observers in a frenzy of excitement about her appearance on Sunday at a Democratic fundraising event in Iowa. It was an annual shindig organized by the state’s Democratic party, but folks are speculating that the former secretary of state is laying the groundwork for a 2016 presidential run, especially since Iowa’s Democrats will be the…

  • Why More Black Americans Should Run for Elected Office

    On Labor Day in Milwaukee, President Barack Obama gave a rousing speech to supporters in which he accused Republicans of playing political games instead of helping American families. When the crowd started to boo, the president leaned on a quip from his 2012 re-election campaign: “Don’t boo. Vote!” It’s a familiar sentiment, particularly in the…

  • How Africans Could Determine the Fate of Scottish Independence

    This Thursday, 4 million people in Scotland will vote in a referendum on whether to end its 307-year political union with England. Final opinion polls show the result on a knife edge, with a remarkable 97 percent of the electorate registered to vote. Among the many communities energized by the debate are 37,000 Scottish residents…

  • Climate Activists Warn Obama About His Pro-Gas Views

    Even though President Barack Obama has been getting tough on power plants to push them to cut back on their carbon dioxide emissions, his administration supports the extraction of natural gas, and environmental groups are warning him to fix that blemish on his climate legacy, Al-Jazeera reports. Climate experts are saying that contrary to the Obama administration’s…

  • Dems Roll Out New 7-Figure Ad Campaign Ahead of Midterms

    Reminding people to vote costs money. And to that end, the Democratic National Committee is spending a pretty penny—seven figures’ worth—on a national media campaign to get the word out that there is indeed a midterm election coming up and that blacks, Latinos, women, Asians and young Americans—all of whom show up to vote much…

  • Tavis Smiley Knocks President Obama Again

    Tavis Smiley, known for his unrelenting criticism of Barack Obama, recently told the Huffington Post that his commentary is rooted in holding the president accountable as the nation’s leader. “As Cornel West and I said many years ago; I respect the president; I will protect the president against white supremacist attacks or anything else he’s…

  • Postponed Immigration Reform Has Latinos Nonchalant About Midterm Elections

    Since President Obama has decided not to move forward with any immigration-reform work until the midterm elections are over, voter-advocacy groups are finding it hard to get disappointed Latinos to the voting booths this fall. “It’s hard,” Sonia Marquez, a director for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, told Al-Jazeera. Of Obama’s postponement of his promised deportation relief for undocumented…

  • This Time, Mr. President, You Didn’t Make a Very Good Case for More War

    Despite polls this week showing that the public is losing confidence in President Barack Obama’s handling of foreign policy, you can put me down in that dwindling category of folks who, up to now, actually think that his handling of the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—ISIS for short—has generally been about…

  • It’s Been Harder Than Obama Thought to End Our Middle East Wars

    President Barack Obama has a problem. Just when he thought he was getting out of the Middle East, he keeps getting pulled back in. After declaring the successful conclusion of two wars initiated by his predecessor, the centerpiece of his foreign policy, external events have backed the president into a proverbial corner. And Wednesday night…