Politics

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post is reporting that President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.  At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans…

When the space shuttle Atlantis blasts off on Friday, it will mark the final NASA shuttle mission ever. But the shuttering of the 30-year-old program isn’t the end of American space exploration — in fact, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, it makes way for the creation of new designs that will take us deeper…

Let me say at the outset that the death of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, or the murder of any child, is a tragedy. Am I outraged at the verdict of not guilty of murder or manslaughter for Casey Anthony? No. Was Casey involved in the death and/or cover-up of Caylee? In my opinion, she probably was.…

In an op-ed, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson highlights President Obama’s approach to dealing with the GOP’s bullying tactics over the debt-ceiling debate. Robinson maintains that the president’s “in-your-face attitude” seems to have thrown Republicans off their stride. Their march to default on the nation’s financial obligations came to a screeching halt. The president is not…

Colin Powell said it, Sen. Harry Reid hinted at it about President Barack Obama, and black folks have known it for hundreds of years. There are advantages to being a light-skinned black person in the United States. Research on those advantages isn’t new, but with the release of a recent study by Villanova University, the…

Update: The fake Tweets, which were up for about half a day, have finally been removed from Fox News’ politics Twitter feed. This incredibly sick prank can’t be blamed on Fox News, but it figures they’d be the vehicle for it: Early this morning, hackers broke into the Fox News politics feed on Twitter and…

Journalists who have reported from Haiti know that it’s not an assignment for the weak of heart. Parts of the country — particularly the capital, Port-au-Prince — are tough places to work and even tougher places to live. This is especially true for poor Haitians who were made homeless by the earthquake last year, who…

After Van Jones, former White House special adviser for green jobs, resigned from the position in 2009 amid controversy and misconceptions over his political activities, the activist and author busied himself with other work. He led the Green Opportunity Initiative for the Center for American Progress and held a teaching fellowship at Princeton University. Then…

The debate over same-sex marriage has proved a controversial topic among African Americans — a conflict that reflects the myriad and contrasting opinions across the community. Because of an entrenched religious history and struggle for equality, blacks remain sensitive to the needs of those denied basic human rights but extremely conservative in applying a Christian-values…

The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt is taking Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and President Barack Obama to task for recent decisions that diminish the role of the United States as a world leader. Hiatt cites the Republican backlash against immigrants and Cantor’s “our way or the highway” approach to government as examples of a crisis in…