Politics

by Jonathan Capehart President Obama didn’t speak long. Just about 15 minutes. But he got his points across. BP is footing the bill for the worst environmental disaster in the nation’s history. Removal of the oil from the water, beaches and wetlands and their restoration to health is a must. Reviving the seafood industry is…

With anti-immigration sentiments overtaking the nation like bad reality television, it should come as no surprise that lawmakers in at least 19 states are considering or have passed laws similar to Arizona’s statute that targets illegal immigrants. William Gheen, a conservative who is president of Americans for Legal Immigration, a nonpartisan political action committee based…

Talk about being kicked while down. It looks like government subsidies to help pay insurance premiums for the unemployed will be going away. Under President Obama’s economic stimulus law, the government provided a 65 percent subsidy because many unemployed could not afford the exorbitant insurance premiums. The aid expired May 31, 2010 and has yet…

To his credit, the nation’s first black U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, has not shied away from discussing race and its impact on our criminal justice system. Shortly after he was confirmed, he famously said that ”in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of…

A number of writers have questioned the much-hyped black Republican surge after many of the candidates failed to win nomination in the latest round of primaries. The Root’s Cord Jefferson asked ”Whatever Happened to the Black Republican Wave?” as if black Republicans have failed in some regard. Granted, black Republican politicians did not deliver many…

As I prepare to travel to South Africa to attend the 19th FIFA World Cup event, I am reminded of the incomparable power of sports.  Perhaps it is because I am a politician that I am so acutely aware of the fact that through international competitive sports we as a global community have managed to…

Pope Springs Eternal: Begs forgiveness, promises action on abusehttp://www.bostonherald.com/news/international/europe/view.bg?articleid=1260882&srvc=rssDuring a Mass in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI begged forgiveness from clerical abuse victims and promised to “do everything possible” to ensure priests don’t rape and molest children ever again. This mass marks the end of the “Vatican’s Year of the Priest,” a yearlong celebration…

The consensus emerging from Tuesday’s primaries is that there’s no real consensus. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter called it for women: ”With only six women governors, 16 women senators, and 74 women in the House, female candidates are fresher for voters looking for change.” TIME’s Jay Newton-Small says pragmatism won: ”If Washington wasn’t quite the winner tonight,…

The last time The Root checked in with former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, it was to get her thoughts on what it takes for black women to make it in politics. She was, after all, the first black female senator in Congress, serving in Illinois from 1993 to 1999. She was also ambassador to New…

While everyone else was paying attention to Nikki Haley and Meg Whitman in Tuesday’s primaries, an African American named Alvin Greene ran over former four-term state lawmaker Vic Rawl to win South Carolina’s Democratic Senate primary. An unemployed 32-year-old veteran who paid $10,400 to register as a candidate and then bought not even a single…