Politics
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Mean Obama? Nice Obama? Neither Will Beat a Stubborn GOP
Writing at the Huffington Post, Keith Boykin takes on what he says are “delusional and contradictory” notions about how the president could be more effective. Sunday’s New York Times op-ed page featured an astonishing piece from columnist Maureen Dowd arguing that gun background checks would have passed in the U.S. Senate if President Obama had…
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Chicago Teen's Journey to the White House
(The Root) — When President Obama announced the first-ever White House Science Fair back in 2009, he said, “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you’ve produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement,…
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How Boston Bomber's Citizenship Application May Affect Immigration Bill
Tamerlan Tsarnaev applied for United States citizenship, but his application was delayed by Homeland Security because the FBI had investigated him, reports the New York Times. The handling of Mr. Tsarnaev’s application could be crucial for the Obama administration in the Senate debate that began this week over a bipartisan bill, which the president supports,…
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Stop and Frisk Across America
(The Root) — Stop and frisk is a controversial term, mostly associated with New York City, but New Yorkers aren’t the only ones battling racial profiling by law enforcement. “Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly have championed the stop-and-frisk model outside of New York,” Ezekiel Edwards, head of the national ACLU’s criminal-law reform project tells The…
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Man Charged With Threats Against Obama
(The Root) — In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice announced that 45-year-old Paul Kevin Curtis, of Corinth, Miss., has been arrested on a criminal complaint charging him with making threats against President Obama and other suspicious communications. In an affidavit in support of the complaint charging Curtis, an FBI agent…
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What It Was Like to Be Jailed With MLK
(The Root) — The Rev. Jonathan McPherson went to jail for the first time in his life on Friday, April 12, 1963. It was Good Friday in Birmingham, Ala. Blacks on that day were defying an injunction outlawing protests, and under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth,…
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Cory Booker and Newark: Clock's Ticking
(The Root) — With approximately 450 days left as mayor, Newark, N.J.’s Cory Booker must use his charisma to charm all of New Jersey if he indeed runs for Senate. But during Tuesday’s media breakfast for black journalists, it was clear that his first order of business is to make Newark an example of his…
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Graduation Season: Who Gets the First Lady and Why?
(The Root) — It’s spring, and that means first lady Michelle Obama is preparing to make the graduation rounds. On the schedule this year: Commencement addresses at Eastern Kentucky University, the Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School for Health Sciences and Engineering at Historic Pearl High and HBCU Bowie State University. According to…
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Well Done, John Lewis. Well Done
(Special to The Root) — Charlayne Hunter-Gault delivered the following remarks on April 4, 2013, at the Allen Prize Symposium at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, where Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) received the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage. The first time I heard Barack Obama say that he stood on the shoulders of…
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Obama's Not Sexist; He Flatters Too Much
In New York magazine Dan Amira says that the POTUS didn’t mean anything by noting California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ good looks — he says everyone is good-looking. Obama even extended his favorite compliment to the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. “I have to say all of you look pretty good without your playoff beards,”…