Politics
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Republican Sen. Tom Coburn Blocks Aid to Haiti
The Associated Press is reporting that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is the reason that “not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived” to Haitians who are in dire need of the aid. You may recall that both the House and the Senate passed a bill that would make $917…
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Why Colbert and Stewart Aren't So Funny to Progressives
I mentioned to a friend that I was planning to attend this Saturday’s march in Washington, D.C., and she replied, “Oh, the Jon Stewart march?” I said, “No, the march planned months ago by real activists.” She hadn’t heard of it. Lost in the kvetching and hand-wringing about Stephen Colbert’s appearance before a House subcommittee…
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Child Nutrition Bill, a Priority for the First Lady, Stalls
by Jane Black A child nutrition bill that was a centerpiece of Michelle Obama’s healthful eating campaign stalled in the House on Wednesday after anti-hunger groups and more than 100 Democrats protested the use of food-stamp dollars to pay for it. The bill, which passed unanimously in the Senate this summer, would have mandated strict…
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The Root Cities: Oakland's Economic Power
Looking back, many Oaklanders say they started seeing signs of change, gentrification, about five years ago. Residents in neighborhoods that had been predominantly black or Latino started seeing new neighbors: young white singles and families. In fact, the groundwork for gentrification started more than 20 years ago, back in the 1980s and ’90s, when Oakland,…
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The Root Cities: Oakland's Political Power
The story of the Serenader bar is a metaphor for what’s happening in Oakland, Calif. For 30 years, it was tucked between a fast-food place and a Chinese restaurant in central Oakland. It was known for its strong drinks, blues and R&B bands, and a clientele of gents in colorful suits and ladies in dresses…
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Post-Oil Spill Recovery: Who Benefits?
On Tuesday the Obama administration cheered the release of the Long Term Gulf Coast Restoration Support Plan authored by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. The 130-page document asks that Congress apply the bulk of civil penalties and fines imposed on BP for its Clean Water Act violations toward a Gulf Coast Recovery Fund that would pay…
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Walking in Roosevelt's Footsteps
A good deal of the fun in reading Jeff Shesol’s masterful work, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, is contained in the first half of the book, when the author’s description of the American political scene under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early years of the Depression sounds so familiar. From the…
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The Root Interview: The DNC's Tim Kaine on the Midterms
In 1994, under the new Clinton White House, the Republican Party fielded a strong pack of candidates in the midterm elections. The result was that they took 54 House seats from the ruling party and wrested control of a Congress that had been largely under Democratic sway for several decades. That was also the year…
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White People Have Lost Their Minds
Puzzled about how the country has gotten into the state it is, with Sarah Palin setting the agenda, a guy who e-mails bestiality and racist jokes challenging for governor of New York, and the Tea Party scaring the Republican Party more than the Democrats? This article by Steven Thrasher might be the best explanation yet.…
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One of Bishop Long's Accusers Speaks Out
One of the Rev. Eddie Long’s accusers went public Tuesday in a Fox News television interview that was both poignant and revealing. Jamal Parris, a 23-year-old who claims that Long began seducing him with attention, gifts, travel and other luxuries when he was just 14, vehemently defended the truth of the accusations that they were…