Politics

When former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder first pitched the idea of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden swapping jobs in 2012, it sounded like a ridiculous stunt. It still sounds like a stunt, but it’s starting to sound a bit less ridiculous. The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward upped the ante this…

When radio host Earl Caldwell put on-air questions to me on New York’s WBAI-FM Friday about the upcoming trial of five U.S. soldiers charged with the wanton killing of three Afghan civilians, I measured them against the horrors of the My Lai massacre and the widespread — and unreported — killing of hundreds, if not…

Since this article was written, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has been repealed. In January 2011 the article was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. During the recent heated debates on Capitol Hill about repealing “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” former Army Sgt. Tracey L. Cooper-Harris sent a poignant letter to President Barack Obama…

Wynton Marsalis spent the weekend jamming with Cuban legends ahead of a concert series that will put musicians from the two Cold War enemies onstage together. The visit by Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra kicks off a season of unprecedented cultural exchange, with the American Ballet Theater scheduled to perform in…

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized for a diabolical human experiment conducted in Central America 64 years ago and engineered by the U.S. government. From 1946 to 1948, scientists deliberately infected Guatemalan research subjects with syphilis to study how well penicillin worked. Sound familiar?…

Tens of thousands of people gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday to demand jobs and justice from the government. Called “One Nation Working Together,” the rally was the culmination of months of planning by more than 300 partner organizations, which included the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the Human Rights Campaign and the…

Unsettling audio of a racist and threatening California debt collector has emerged just as Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and George LeMieux (R-Fla.) make the first moves on their End Debt Collector Abuse Act (EDCA). Introduced late Wednesday, the bipartisan bill is a series of amendments to the already established Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA),…

Last year, prosecutors in the county of Pottawattamie, Iowa, narrowly avoided a potential ruling by the Supreme Court that would have held them liable for their role in the wrongful conviction of two black teenagers. The two prosecutors in that case, Joseph Hrvol and David Richter, coerced false testimony from a 16-year-old witness, fabricated evidence…

In name and in theory, the premise is great: “One Nation Working Together.” Initially, the Web site looks the part as well. There is talk of uniting conservatives and moderates, liberals and progressives. There is the common goal of advancing prosperity for all Americans in a manner that is above politics and encompasses citizens from…