Politics
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Obama’s Brother Is Self-Publishing an Autobiography to Set the Record Straight
President Barack Obama’s half-brother is self-publishing an autobiography detailing the abuse his mother suffered at the hands of their father, the Associated Press reports. Mark Obama Ndesandjo is the son of Barack Obama Sr. and his third wife, Ruth Ndesandjo, a Jewish American woman. The book, Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery, will also address Ndesandjo’s…
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Dennis Rodman Back in North Korea to Plan Kim Jong Un’s Birthday Exhibition Game
Former NBA star Dennis Rodman is still BFFs with North Korea’s “dear leader,” Kim Jong Un. He’s even planning a Jan. 8 exhibition game with 12 other ex-NBA players in Pyongyang for Kim’s birthday, the Associated Press reports. Rodman’s visit comes almost a week after North Korea announced the execution of the “traitor of all ages,”…
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Black Power Activists Accused Government of Spying, but They Weren’t Called Heroes
Perhaps we’ve got our definitions of “hero” twisted, but I have yet to hear a convincing take on what makes Edward Snowden one. Ultimately, this cat is not the post-modern neo-geek who hacktivists and fake libertarians profess him to be. All I’m picking up is yet another middle-class Caucasian kid road-tripping the globe—putting our international…
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Black Legislators Want Your Voting Rights Back
When Rep. Alicia Reece—a Democrat representing Cincinnati in the Ohio state legislature—hears people say the next big political event in the Buckeye State won’t materialize until the 2016 presidential election is underway, she wonders what political planet they inhabit. In 2012, Reece saw conservative political operatives erect a billboard in her neighborhood that claimed to…
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Obama Includes LGBT Athletes in Olympic Delegation
Renowned tennis player Billie Jean King and hockey player Caitlin Cahow are the two openly gay athletes whom President Barack Obama has selected to be part of the U.S. delegation for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, sending a clear message to that country about its treatment of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and…
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NYC Mayor Blames God for Homeless Girl’s Plight Instead of His Policies
Mayor Michael Bloomberg may be in his last few weeks as New York City’s mayor, but he sure is finishing his tenure with a bang. Today it was reported that when asked for his reaction to the harrowing New York Times series on a little homeless girl named Dasani, he replied, “This kid was dealt…
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Tulane Student Youngest Member of Mississippi House of Representatives
As a sophomore at Moss Point High School in Mississippi, Jeramey Anderson became interested in politics, and it’s a good thing, considering that those years in high school prepped him to become Mississippi’s youngest legislator, at age 22. Anderson is a senior at Tulane University’s Gulf Coast campus in Biloxi, Miss., where he studies homeland…
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Looking for a Job? Congress Doesn’t Seem to Care
Lawmakers are in a knot over everything from the Affordable Care Act to finding a rare congressional kumbaya moment for a budget deal. But perhaps you haven’t noticed—it seems as if the last thing anyone in Washington, D.C., wants to talk about is employment. That’s fairly strange, considering it’s still rather rough out there as…
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For Black Cubans, That Handshake Was Hope
It’s hard to get excited about a handshake. It is just a courteous gesture, after all. But for Cubans, particularly many Afro-Cubans, such a gesture between their president and the black president of the superpower just 90 miles north of them fuels hopes for bigger changes. One such change would be the ultimate lifting of…
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Senate Confirms Jeh Johnson to Head Homeland Security
Democrats used the newly adjusted anti-filibustering rules to win Senate confirmation of Jeh Johnson, the president’s top pick for secretary of Homeland Security. The Senate voted 78-16 to confirm Johnson, a former top lawyer for the Pentagon who served as general counsel to the Defense Department during most of President Obama’s first term, ABC News…