Politics
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Racist Emails Create New Headaches for GOP
The Republican National Committee has spent much of February highlighting the party’s efforts to be more inclusive. Earlier this month the organization hosted its second annual Trailblazer Awards Luncheon honoring black Republicans such as former Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan. The party also launched its first-ever Black History Month ad campaign, with…
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Disgraced Former US Congressman Arrested in Zimbabwe
Former Rep. Melvin Jay Reynolds (D-Ill.) was arrested Monday in Zimbabwe on suspicion of pornography possession and an immigration charge, the Associated Press reports. Police detectives and immigration officers arrested Reynolds at a hotel, and he is currently being detained and will appear in court soon, immigration official Ario Mabika told the AP. According to…
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Ugandans Defend Criminalizing Gay People and Tell Obama to Back Off
The call from the BBC in London came at 7:30 Monday morning. They wanted to know if I could be a guest on the BBC World Service News radio talk show World Have Your Say to discuss Barack Obama’s public and pointed condemnation of a proposed Ugandan measure that would harden the African nation’s already…
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Civil Rights Groups React to Michael Dunn Mistrial
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund “The shooting of seventeen-year-old Jordan Davis marked yet another tragic and senseless death of an unarmed, innocent, African-American teenager. Rather than seeing Jordan or his friends for what they were—ordinary teenagers—Mr. Dunn saw a threat and recklessly acted with lethal force. “We will never know exactly what Mr.…
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House of Cards: Watching White Guys Have All the Fun
Disclaimer: If House of Cards has an official fan club, make me its president. Saw the season 1 trailer, sold. Saw the viral promo with Kevin Spacey in a Lincoln Memorial pose, sold. I am the cat who unwittingly binged on the groundbreaking Netflix series in one caffeine-hazed weekend night. I kept telling myself I’d…
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Obamacare Enrollment at 3.3 Million
Approximately 3.3 million people have signed up for private health insurance coverage through the Obama marketplace since the beginning of October, according to the Obama administration, the New York Daily News reports. Originally, the Congressional Budget Office had estimated about 7 million people would be signing up for the private coverage by the end of…
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Sen. Rand Paul Files Lawsuit Against Obama for NSA Surveillance
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has officially filed a class action lawsuit against President Obama and other administration officials over National Security Agency surveillance, CBS reports. In conjunction with Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative nonprofit organization, Paul is accusing the administration of violating the Fourth Amendment through the collection of Americans’ phone metadata. (The…
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Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Found Guilty of Corruption
A federal jury found former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin guilty of 20 out of 21 charges of corruption, including various instances conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud, NPR reports. Nagin, 57, was accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, as well as siphoning money and granite into a business owned…
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Attorney General Eric Holder: Restore Voting Rights to Ex-Cons
Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for a group of 11 states to restore voting rights to their ex-felons as part of his initiative to fix flaws in the criminal-justice system that have a disproportionate effect on minority groups, the Associated Press reports. “It is time to fundamentally rethink laws that permanently disenfranchise people who…
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Obama to Sign Executive Order Raising Minimum Wage for Federal Contract Workers
President Barack Obama is set to sign an executive order on Wednesday, effectively raising the minimum hourly wage of federal contract workers to $10.10, according to a press release. The White House touted how the order would “benefit hundreds of thousands of people” working on the federal contracts who are currently making less than $10.10.…