Politics
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NAACP Slams Double-Digit Black Unemployment Rate
The U.S. Department of Labor released statistics Friday showing that the overall unemployment rate inched up slightly to 6.2 percent in July from 6.1 percent in June. And unemployment in the African American community remain in the double digits, causing alarm among some civil rights leaders. Last month, the black unemployment rate was 11.4 percent,…
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Is the Gaza Conflict Making Black Folks Uncomfortable?
As an unconditional 72-hour cease-fire collapses, the New Jersey-sized Middle Eastern powerhouse called Israel is not in a good place. A bloody cage match with Hamas has created a scary, nonstop loop of grief-stricken Palestinian civilians on 60-second, 60-minute blast. As a result, the Jewish state is now faced with an unprecedented barrage of global…
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Obama’s US-Africa Leaders Summit Aims to Strengthen Ties
Black people who look to defend President Barack Obama against other black people who claim he hasn’t done anything particularly “black” as president have had plenty of ammunition this week and will have more the next. The first black president, the son of an African immigrant, is also the first to convene a U.S.-Africa Leaders…
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House Votes to Sue President; Obama Tells Them to ‘Stop Hating’
The House of Representatives has succeeded in authorizing an unprecedented lawsuit against President Barack Obama, which will claim that the president exceeded his constitutional power in his handling of the Affordable Care Act, Reuters reports. Split along party lines, the 225-201 vote gives House lawyers permission to draft up the necessary legal paperwork while representatives…
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Will More Black Democratic Political Staffers Shift the Midterms’ Outcome?
During a press call Tuesday, Rep. Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, laid out what he sees as the Democrats’ best chance at victory in the upcoming midterm elections. Unlike previous election cycles, when much of the party’s outreach focused almost exclusively on mobilizing key groups to go to…
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We Stand With Communities of Color in the Fight for Carbon Pollution Standards
Climate change is no longer a problem for a distant tomorrow. We’re feeling the impact on our health, on our environment and on our economy today. But while climate change hurts everyone, communities of color and low-income Americans are the hardest hit. Underserved communities are the least equipped to deal with more intense superstorms, severe…
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500 ‘Young African Leaders’ to Meet With Obama
With 60 percent of Africa’s population under the age of 35, young people stand to play as important a role in their respective nations’ success on the continent as anywhere else in the world. On Monday, 500 such young people, who have spent the summer honing their skills at U.S. universities, will have an audience…
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Aide: White House Taking Impeachment Threat Seriously
The Obama administration is not discounting the possibility that House Republicans could pursue impeachment of the president, Senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters Friday, the Associated Press reports. “I saw a poll today that had a huge portion of the Republican Party base saying they supported impeaching the president. A lot of people…
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US Senator Touts Fed Gun Intelligence Center in Chicago
After a spate of shootings across Chicago that left over a dozen dead and nearly 100 wounded, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Friday toured a new federal Gun Crime Intelligence Center, saying, “You can’t fight a war without intelligence,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the…
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Why I Spoke to This Year’s Urban League Convention
Today, America is facing a crisis of joblessness and lack of access to quality education, especially in minority communities. The National Urban League has rightly called it the crisis of “one nation underemployed.” When I addressed the Urban League’s conference in Cincinnati this week, I spoke of Whitney Young, the civil rights leader and head…