Politics
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A Unified Theory of Murdoch
Corporations, like all human organizations, develop distinct cultures. A set of shared values evolves that controls what a company is willing to do in the pursuit of profit — and most important, what it is not. Most often, those values are driven by senior management. To succeed in that environment, employees must conform to the…
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America Forgot James Weldon Johnson
The Martin Luther King Jr. memorial is set to open next month on the National Mall in Washington, after years of delay and controversy. It’s about time. But the approaching dedication has me thinking about another African American who campaigned just as hard as Dr. King for equal rights and doesn’t have a statue on…
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Waiting for the Black Ronald Reagan
Before Barack Obama was President Barack Obama, black Republicans had it pretty easy. No one really cared what former Rep. J.C. Watts thought about Afghanistan or what former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell thought about top marginal tax rates. All those guys had to do was offer themselves up as the buttoned-down alternative to…
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Using the Death Penalty to Get Re-Elected
While most of the country was riveted by the verdict in the Casey Anthony case — invoking the O.J. trial and decrying what many regarded as an unjust verdict — the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit criminal-defense and civil rights law and advocacy firm, released yet another in a series of reports that clearly…
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McConnell-Reid vs. Gang of Six
The re-emergence of the Gang of Six (GO6) and the backing of President Obama [Tuesday] is a glimmer of hope that the willful insanity over the debt ceiling will give way to a credible plan that puts the United States on a credible fiscal path. It would cut $3.7 trillion in spending over 10 years,…
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Herman Cain's Bigotry: No More Free Pass
On a weekend talk show, Herman Cain took the position that any community in the nation has the right to prohibit Muslims from building a mosque. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson says his reasoning sounds a lot like the arguments bigots of generations past used to make about black people — and it’s no less…
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VIDEO: Cain Says Americans Have Right to 'Ban Mosques'
Not again. Herman Cain is back on his anti-Muslim campaign. Several months ago he said he was not comfortable with the idea of appointing Muslims to his cabinet. Now he says that Americans have the right to ban mosques from their communities, according to the Huffington Post. “Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and…
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Celebrating Nelson Mandela at 93
Nelson Roulihlahla Mandela is celebrating his 93rd birthday today, marking still another milestone in a life that few, perhaps not even Mandela himself, could have imagined. The boy who, like all other boys in his rural South African village of Qunu, herded sheep and kicked around a soccer ball in the rolling hills, may have…
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Exorcising Eric Cantor
My congressman is none other than Eric Cantor, the leader of the House Republican majority. In fact, the house in the Richmond, Va., suburbs where I live was once owned by one of Cantor’s relatives, and he played here when he was a child. Thinking about that gives me the willies. It’s creepy to be…