Politics

It’s as if Juan Williams were a man in a small rain forest tribe and he called out a taboo name for a spirit. Or a lion. Or said the name of someone deceased. In human societies, some words will be considered magical — and not just in the societies we think of as primal.…

This is Part 2 of The Agenda: What Obama Has Done for You, a series of articles looking at President Barack Obama’s record on issues that affect blacks. As African-American environmental-justice proponents Van Jones and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins will tell you, environmental sustainability and climate change are, in addition to their general importance, also tremendously relevant…

President Barack Obama plugged his administration’s job-creation efforts eight days before the midterm elections. During a campaign stop in Rhode Island, Obama acknowledged that some of his policies were not popular and that Americans were frustrated by the weak economic recovery. The president stressed that the steps he took averted a second economic depression. “It…

Democrats usually have women voters in the bag. In the 2006 midterm elections, exit polls showed that women voters favored Democrats overall by 12 percentage points. In 2008 Barack Obama got 56 percent of the female vote in the general election. But as Nov. 2 looms, it’s become obvious to Democrats that their once comfortable…

You don’t come to Rhode Island Democratic gubernatorial candidate Frank Caprio’s state, schedule appearances with him and refuse to endorse him! Caprio made this plain when he told a local radio station early Monday that Barack Obama, who has declined to endorse anyone in the Rhode Island governor’s race, “can take his endorsement and really…

In September a New York Times/CBS News poll found that fewer than one in 10 Americans had heard about the Obama administration’s hallmark tax cuts. Though the cuts had decreased income taxes up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, virtually nobody knew about them, least of all members of the…

This is Part 1 of The Agenda: What Obama Has Done for You, a series of articles looking at President Barack Obama’s record on issues that affect blacks. On March 23 of this year, after months of heated conservative backlash at town halls and Tea Party rallies nationwide, President Obama signed into law HR 3590,…

You have to admit: Whether the spectacle is staged or genuine (I lean toward the latter), it is pretty ironic to see the Fox News Channel’s crew of media personalities gang up on National Public Radio in defense of Juan Williams, the man who regularly makes Bill Kristol reach the point of verbal explosion on…

Just when it seemed that this country’s home-foreclosure crisis couldn’t get any worse, Bank of America made a stunning announcement on Oct. 1: The nation’s largest consumer bank was halting foreclosures altogether in 23 states (later expanded to 50) after reports came out that it and other banks had “robo-signed” thousands of affidavits confirming that…

By Michael A. Fletcher For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent — a part of history, yet absent from it. When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in…