Politics

THE WHITE HOUSEOffice of the Press SecretaryFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FORTUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2012 In the morning, the President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. This meeting will be closed press. Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. 

(The Root) — Last week, four-star retired general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. Powell, a lifelong Republican, broke with his party ranks for the second time, having chosen Obama over fellow veteran John McCain in 2008. Powell waited until after the candidates’ foreign policy debate to make…

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page addresses former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s recent Facebook smear of President Barack Obama, in which she alleges a cover-up regarding  the attack in Libya. Page likens the allegation to the Birther crusade. “Why the lies?” she wrote on her Facebook page about the aftermath of the tragic Sept. 11 attack…

(The Root) Updated Wednesday, October 31, 2012 — Damage and power outages could slow the pace of early voting in the three swing states of Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina — and has already led to major changes in the campaign schedules of President Obama and Mitt Romney. Early voting had already been suspended for…

With only two months to go, Chicago’s homicide total on Monday reached 435, matching last year’s total murder count, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The 435th homicide victim of the year was a man in his 30s, who was shot on a South Side street. The city’s homicide count grabbed international attention when it spiked…

(The Root) — When retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson denounced the Republican Party as “full of racists” in a recent interview, he ignited a firestorm. Though the comments were not the first time the Republican Party had been accused of being the chosen party for those harboring racist tendencies, it did mark one of the…

THE WHITE HOUSEOffice of the Press SecretaryFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FORMONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2012 UPDATE 2: In the afternoon, the President will deliver a statement after his Situation Room briefing on Hurricane Sandy. The President’s remarks in the Brady Press Briefing Room are open press. UPDATED: In the morning, the President…

Electing a president is not about race, but you wouldn’t know if from the recent Associated Press polls and comments from former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu. The surrogate for Mitt Romney continues to indulge in racist rhetoric and insinuation. Most recently, Sununu attempted to discredit the importance of fellow Republican and former Secretary of…

For all of President Obama’s victories, there also have been failures, like a high poverty rate and the prison population among African Americans. New York Times contributor Fredrick C. Harris wonders why more black intellectuals, who no doubt recognize these trends, aren’t more critical of the president, like Cornel West is, for example. Whether it…