Politics

During the course of the Bush administration, Republicans found their mojo for Big Government Republicanism. For example, in 2003, President George W. Bush announced that his administration would spend “up to $400 billion” over 10 years to add prescription-drug coverage to Medicare. By 2008 that Medicare drug entitlement program was projected to cost $783 billion…

Oh, look. The president has a birth certificate. Apparently he isn’t a sleeper terror agent trying to bring down the country. What a relief. But even after Obama’s press conference on Wednesday, during which he revealed the document that some people claimed didn’t exist, Donald Trump and his fellow Birthers haven’t given up the fight.…

Donald Trump built his headline-grabbing, undeclared presidential run — and a double-digit lead in early GOP 2012 primary polling — on the theory that President Barack Obama isn’t actually American. If Trump plans to keep on running, now that a copy of the president’s long-form birth certificate is posted on whitehouse.gov and the Obama “Birther” conspiracies have…

Does Donald Trump have any sense of decency? He declared this morning that he was “proud” of himself for forcing President Obama to make his detailed birth certificate public. The president of the United States had to “prove” that he was actually a United States citizen, two years into his term. “We do not have…

There’s a very big story unfolding in California right now whose ultimate outcome could determine whether or not gays and lesbians will have the right to get married in the United States.The story concerns Proposition 8, the statewide referendum banning same-sex marriage. Having failed to prove their case in court, Prop 8 supporters are now…

It’s not surprising to get involved in a heated discussion about race when you’re strolling through a museum exhibit called “Race: Are We So Different?” And wouldn’t you know that President Barack Obama would get caught right in the middle of it. Not all charges that the president isn’t who he says he is come…

If there’s one thing you’ve got to give right-wingers credit for, it’s coming up with new ways to scare the pants off of white people. When it comes to playing the race card, their creativity is unsurpassed. A recent example of this unique talent could be found the other day on, of all unlikely places,…

Need a reason to celebrate Earth Day? Here’s one. According to the Center for American Progress, more than 71 percent of African Americans and 66 percent of Latinos live in areas that fail to meet one or more of the Environmental Protection Agency’s air-quality standards. The EPA says that our minority communities are susceptible to…

Once a staple in big cities like Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta, African Americans are leaving in herds and heading toward the suburbs. The Washington Post reports that eight of the nation’s top majority-black districts lost an average of more than 10 percent of their African-American populations. This new census data is troubling not just to…

When Barack Obama invoked the inspiring words of famous leaders during his 2008 presidential campaign, followed by the refrain “just words,” he was striking back at his opponents’ claims that he lacked the experience to back up his soaring rhetoric, as well as at the cynicism that he believed was infecting the American political process.…