Politics

The New York Times has said that, by storming out of his House ethics trial Monday, Rep. Charles Rangel chose to avoid a public airing of the embarrassing charges against him and to instead make his case “in the court of public opinion.” But as Al Sharpton and others point out, Rangel has already done…

The Atlanta Post is reporting that Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, Susan Sher, will be stepping down next year and returning to Chicago. Another Chicagoan, Tina Tchen, who is the White House director of public engagement, has been mentioned as a potential replacement, but no decisions have been made on her replacement as of yet.…

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Brady Dennis State attorneys general and the country’s biggest lenders are negotiating to create a nationwide fund to compensate borrowers who can prove they lost their home in an improper foreclosure, state and industry officials said. The fund would present a solution for both sides, helping banks avoid lengthy and…

Five years after Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off of Dorothy McClendon’s Biloxi, Miss., home, sending a deluge behind its walls and upending the ramp required for her wheelchair, she is expecting to receive her share of a multimillion-dollar allotment of housing-rehab funds that the Bush administration had tried to divert into expanding that coastal…

MSNBC is reporting that President Barack Obama has awarded the Medal of Honor to Salvatore Giunta (jee-UN-tah) on Tuesday. That makes the 25-year-old Iowan the first living service member from the Iraq or Afghanistan wars to be so honored. Seven others have received the award posthumously. Obama called Giunta a solider who is “as humble…

It’s been almost two years since the end of the administration of George W. Bush. Nine years since 9/11. Nine years since the massive roundup of Muslim and Arab men without probable cause. Seven years since the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses. Eight years since lawyers at the Department of Justice published the torture…

By Amy Gardner Virginia Thomas, political activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has decided to relinquish control of Liberty Central, the conservative group she founded less than a year ago, so that the organization can escape the “distractions” of her media celebrity, a spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman, Caitlin Carroll of CRC Public…

It’s a cruel irony of life that, as Billie Holiday sang, “Them that’s got shall get,” but practices in today’s job market suggest that those in the best position financially have a better chance of being hired to fill the limited openings available. That’s because credit checks are increasingly becoming a standard practice for employers.…

On Fox News Sunday, David Axelrod told Chris Wallace that he would be returning to Chicago in early 2011 to begin preparation for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. Axelrod also talked about Obama’s opposition to a permanent extension of Bush’s tax cuts, especially for the wealthy. The White House has said that extending the middle-class…