Politics
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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…
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Why Won’t More Wealthy Black Celebs Dig Deeper in Their Wallets?
Though the outsized influence of wealthy conservative donors like the Koch brothers tend to dominate debates about the role of money in politics, a new report indicates progressives now appear to have a fundraising advantage. According to the Sunlight Foundation, the top donors to super PACs for the past year have leaned progressive. But none…
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A Sudden Push for Felon Voting Rights in a Most Unlikely Place
If advocates have their way, voting rights could be a new reality for the nation’s incarcerated. Full voting rights for felons is as hot a topic in Washington as voting rights in reverse pushed by voter-ID-tickled Republicans. But with new legislation moving through the Senate, a spotlight is being placed anew on the plight of…
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Are Immigrant Children Our Moral Responsibility?
In this inaugural episode of Crossfire on The Root: Join The Root’s, Jenée Desmond-Harris, as she moderates a debate between Van Jones and Newt Gingrich, the hosts of CNN’s Crossfire. They take on questions surrounding the most practical and moral approach to the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Plus: What does Chicago have to do with it?
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Mr. President, Simply Avoiding Mistakes Is Not a Foreign Policy
International crises, ranging from a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight being shot down by Russia-backed Ukrainian separatists to Israel’s escalating military intervention into Gaza, have highlighted the Obama doctrine’s political and policy limitations. And at a time when the world is crying out for bold, decisive leadership from the White House, President Barack Obama has appeared…
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Cory Booker: 3 Signs the Selfie Senator Has Big Plans
Jay Z may have waxed himself into hip-hop immortality with “99 Problems,” but Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is drowning himself in 99 selfies. Somehow the New Jersey-bred genie has maneuvered his legendary social media savvy into political Similac for bipartisanship. Driven either by a pitch for Guinness World Records or genuinely convinced that he can…
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For African-American Women—and All Women—Let’s Make Every Day Equal Pay Day
When we talk about the gender pay gap, most of us are already familiar with the fact that women make just 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. While this remains true, not all women are even that fortunate. For African-American women the wage gap is even larger. African-American women make just 64 cents…
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46,000 Federal Drug Sentences Could Be Cut
Almost half of the nation’s 100,000 federal drug inmates could spend less time behind bars following a decision Friday by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the Washington Post reports. In a unanimous vote, the commission decided that 46,000 federal drug offenders in prison are eligible for reduced sentences, the report says. The decision, the Post says,…