Politics

Update: The tax-cut bill passed the House late Thursday. Its next stop is the president’s desk. As President Barack Obama’s controversial tax-cut proposal was temporarily pulled from a vote in the House on Thursday, the White House trotted out Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, and Gene Sperling, counselor to the treasury…

Sometimes, moving is a happy event. Sometimes it’s not. Last week, when Annie Ricks and five of her children left the 11th-floor apartment in the dilapidated, 15-story high-rise complex where she has lived for the past 22 years, it was a media event. And Ricks, the last tenant in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green public housing project,…

President Obama and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett will meet with members of the National Policy Alliance today. The alliance is made up of 10 member organizations, including Blacks in Government, the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Conference of Black Mayors, the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association and the National Caucus of Black School…

There is the familiar theme: “We oppose the president on his latest legislative initiative.” There is the familiar rhetoric: “The president is spineless and needs to take a stand.” Then there is the face of the opposition: the Republicans on Capitol Hill. But not in this instance. Not with Democrats reversing roles with congressional Republicans…

It sometimes strains the mind to adapt to the “new normal” that constitutes our contemporary legal framework since the advent of the so-called war on terror. In just 10 years, terms like “indefinite detention” and “torture” no longer describe crimes per se — at least not to many former and some current government lawyers, sitting…

Signing into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (pdf) will naturally not go down in history for President Barack Obama the way the latest tax compromise has. It’s not that hot kind of news — although it will likely have more effect on children’s daily lives than modest tax cuts. This new bill requires food…

By the time U.S. policymakers in Haiti are finished playing with Haiti, they will have hung President René Préval out to dry; ignored an election process that was not inclusive, not fair and not free, even before one ballot was cast; and ignored the fact that most of the candidates asked for the (s)election to…

The Associated Press is reporting that a federal judge declared the foundation of President Barack Obama’s health care law unconstitutional Monday, ruling that the government cannot require Americans to purchase insurance. The case is expected to end up at the Supreme Court. In his order, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson said that he will…

Today President Obama signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The president and first lady Michelle Obama delivered remarks at Harriet Tubman Elementary School located in Washington, D.C. President and Mrs. Obama were joined by administration officials and members of Congress, as well as teachers, students and parents from Harriet Tubman Elementary…

At 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, before a crowd of about 150 lawmakers from both parties, African-American activists and Native American leaders, President Barack Obama brought to a close decades of government-sponsored racial injustice — or at least two chapters in a lengthy book. Standing in the White House’s South Court auditorium, the president signed into…