Politics
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Former Godfather's Pizza CEO Considering Presidential Run
Former Godfather’s Pizza chain CEO Herman Cain may toss his hat in the ring for the 2012 presidential election. It seems that conservatives, particularly Tea Party members, are less concerned with a candidate’s political experience and more concerned with his conservative values. Mike Glover of the Associated Press reports that even though many Americans haven’t…
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The Supreme Court Is Wrong on Soldiers' Funerals
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church’s First Amendment right of free speech outweighs a grieving family’s right to privacy when they bury a loved one. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 8-1 majority (pdf) in Snyder v. Phelps, said last week that the First Amendment protects “even hurtful speech on…
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Religious African Americans React to Obama's DOMA Shift
The Washington Post reports that President Obama’s recent shift on the Defense of Marriage Act (he’s instructed the Justice Department not to defend it) doesn’t seem to have had a huge impact on his support from the socially conservative African-American religious community: When same-sex marriage was upended in California by popular vote in 2008, gay…
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Black Voters Are Pragmatic About Gay Marriage
Tuesday’s Washington Post article examining the response by African-American voters to President Barack Obama’s new Defense of Marriage Act policy reveals what many in the black community already know: When it comes to the ballot box, marriage equality is mostly a nonissue. In interviews with black pastors, pollsters, churchgoers and professors, African-American voters explain that…
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The Lingering Questions About Human Medical Experiments
The specter of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study inevitably looms over talk of human subjects in medical research. The well-known case involved the U.S. Public Health Service, which, from 1932 to 1972, studied hundreds of black men in Alabama with syphilis, failing to inform them of their diagnosis or treat their condition. From this striking example…
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The Root Recommends: CNN's 'Race & Rage'
Race & Rage is a new documentary commemorating the 20th anniversary of the vicious beating Rodney King took from Los Angeles police in 1991. The beating and events that followed ultimately sparked a weeklong spree of riots and looting and forced the city to re-examine its racial divides. The documentary, hosted by CNN anchor Don…
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NAACP Calls on District Attorney to Probe Shooting of Black Children
Digtriad is reporting that the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP isn’t giving up its fight for additional charges against a man accused of shouting racial slurs before shooting two children. NAACP leaders met at the Caswell County courthouse Tuesday morning to make their first public call of action under the county’s new district attorney,…
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'Job-Killing' Bills: GOP Spending Cuts Would Cost 700,000 Jobs
Columnist Ezra Klein of the Washington Post is reporting that GOP spending cuts would cost America 700,000 jobs. He calls out the GOP in general and House Minority Leader John Boehner in particular — who label everything from health care to the stimulus bill as “job-killing” measures, yet fail to acknowledge the role that the…
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Crazy Qaddafi Déjà Vu
Paul Delaney is an inveterate diarist. In January 1989 he was the Madrid bureau chief for the New York Times when he was dispatched to Tripoli, Libya. His account of the trip from his diary will be included in a memoir he is completing. Jan. 3: Things heating up in Libya. U.S. President [Ronald] Reagan…
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Republicans Take Up for First Lady
The Wall Street Journal reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and likely 2012 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee both defended Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against conservative criticism on Sunday talk shows yesterday: “What Michelle Obama is proposing is not that the government tells you that you can’t eat dessert,” Mr. Huckabee said. Rather, the…