Politics

On Sept. 22, Benjamin T. Jealous, the charismatic head of the NAACP, made history. On that Wednesday, Jealous spoke at Manhattan’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Greenwich Village to promote the upcoming One Nation Working Together march on Washington, D.C. It was the first time in history that a current NAACP president…

President Barack Obama sat down with The Today Show’s Matt Lauer to discuss education reform in this country. During the discussion, the president stated, “Money without reform will not fix the problem.” He suggested that a “vigorous reform agenda” — including increased standards, great teachers, reduced bureaucracy and more resources — needs to be deployed…

Yes, “A Pledge to America,” by a coalition of Republicans, may help the GOP make a serious play for both houses of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections. Yet if you read the language of the 21-page pledge, you will see a lot of good ideas (including many hijacked from the Tea Party movement that…

On Day 3 of the his visit to the United Nations, President Barack Obama will focus on Sudan and Southeast Asia. After concentrating on broader international issues during the first two days, Obama will attend a high-level U.N. meeting aimed at ensuring that an upcoming independence referendum for southern Sudan does not spark a new…

“People want truth or nothing at all. People want sincerity, security and nothing false”—Nona Hendryx If we learn nothing else from the biggest and messiest black mega-church scandal ever, it is that truth cannot be silenced, no matter how many refuse to speak it or conspire to hush it up. It will find a way…

Students and alumni of that venerable Southern institution Ole Miss are currently reeling at the news that the university has decided to replace its controversial mascot, Colonel Reb, a white-bearded Confederate Army officer, with an as-yet-undetermined new one — a horse, perhaps. To many, abandoning the controversial colonel, who hasn’t been the school’s official mascot…

Looking back on the campaign slogan — “Change You Can Believe In” — it’s pretty easy to imagine President Barack Obama sitting alone after hours in the Oval Office like a would-be Jerry Maguire, thinking: “It was only a mission statement.” When he said “change,” he was probably thinking about a more robust kind of…

We haven’t wanted to face it. We’ve tried to avoid it. We’ve hoped that last summer’s town halls, the Birthers, the deliberate misinformation about President Barack Obama, the rise of the Tea Party, the refusal of Republican leadership to engage with the president in good faith — we hoped that all of these things represented…

Lawrence Garrison felt a tinge of hope last month when President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the disparity in the amounts of powder cocaine and crack cocaine required for mandatory minimum prison sentences. The hope was not for him, you see. He is a free man, so to speak. The 37-year-old…

For three years, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee promoted the notion that education reform could happen only if she was totally in charge and everything was done her way. It was her way — or her way. She justified every policy, every action, by saying that it was all about the kids, not about…