Politics

(The Root) — When Texas’ Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott gloated on Twitter just hours after the Supreme Court hobbled the Voting Rights Act (pdf) — that “Eric Holder can no longer deny Voter ID in Texas” — he had to know that the Obama administration would respond. Attorney General Holder delivered the counterpunch on…

When President Barack Obama failed to kiss the rings of scholar Cornel West and talk-show host Tavis Smiley in 2008 before entering the White House, he unwittingly touched off a series of invectives from the duo, L.Z. Granderson writes at CNN. … When Obama didn’t accept the invitation to speak at [Tavis] Smiley’s forum in…

(The Root) — When former congressman-turned-mayoral front-runner Anthony Weiner acknowledged during a press conference on Tuesday that his sexting scandal had lasted longer than voters had previously been led to believe, one thing was clear: His campaign for mayor was officially in trouble. What was less clear is exactly who would benefit from his campaign’s…

President Obama apparently is also commander in chief of Twitter. Burson-Marsteller’s annual Twiplomacy report shows that (@BarackObama) surpasses second-place Pope Francis (@Pontifex) for the most followed world leader on Twitter with 33,510,157 followers as of July 1, Politico reports. Despite his large following, Obama’s tweets are on average only retweeted 2,309 times versus Pope Francis’s 11,116 retweets…

President Barack Obama plans to give a series of back-to-back speeches over the next two days aimed at pushing for policies to expand the middle class. The goal is to help people he says are still struggling years after the financial crisis, the Associated Press reports. The talks come as Congress prepares to leave Capitol…

(The Root) — Reduced to its very essence, the contention over immigration reform is about numbers, meaning how many immigrants of color will further alter the complexion of America and how they might vote. For that reason, African Americans should care about the outcome of the current debate in Washington, D.C., because it is about…

In the wake of President Obama’s speech about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, Democracy Now talked with outspoken Obama critic Cornel West on Monday to get his thoughts on the president’s comments, the Huffington Post reports. The professor cited the killing of innocent people during U.S. drone strikes and called the president a…

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson acknowledges that he could not have been more wrong a week ago when he wrote that President Barack Obama would not be able to address effectively the issues of race that the George Zimmerman trial raised. Robinson is encouraged by the degree to which Obama explained what it’s like to be…

First lady Michelle Obama is a known advocate for healthy living. Now she’s tackling another issue: gun violence. The Associated Press reports that she met with high school students from a gang-infested neighborhood in Chicago to talk about Congress’ gun control debate. As a mother raising children herself, Obama says that part of the debate…

(The Root) — Barack Obama passed a crucial test of presidential leadership this past Friday by directly and forthrightly addressing the crisis of race and democracy that has gripped the nation’s attention in the wake of the George Zimmerman trial. In an impromptu address to the White House press corps, Obama adopted the role of…