Politics

Malawi President Pardons Gay Couple http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/africa/30malawi.html?ref=world Hope springs eternal after all. A gay couple sentenced to 14 years in a Malawian prison for “unnatural acts” was pardoned shortly after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations met Malawi’s president. In a press conference, President Bingu wa Mutharika stated, “These boys committed a crime against…

Someone on the Glenn Beck’s radio show had sense enough to tell him that teasing an eleven-year-old girl was not a good look and that he should probably apologize In a statement posted on his website Friday afternoon, Beck said he broke his own rule about “leaving kids out of political debates.” “In discussing how…

The impressive strides that African Americans have made in the leadership ranks of the military following integration have all but stopped in recent years, and they now occupy just a tiny share of the nation’s top military jobs. Nearly 62 years after President Harry R. Truman signed an executive order to   desegregate the nation’s Armed…

Sometimes I wonder if President Obama reads too many Ben Okri novels. As we transform from a U.S.-dominated, unipolar international order to a non-polar world, virtually everything about his Middle East policy as outlined in the latest National Security Strategy seems to have been infected by a kind of magical thinking. From Afghanistan to Israel/Palestine…

Every few years, some Republican leader gets caught giving voice to a stubborn and persistent yearning for the racial dynamics of the era preceding the civil rights movement — a yearning that remains a foundational, defining ethic for at least some GOP members. In 2002 it was then-Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, who at a…

Charles Rangel , the more-or-less former chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, says that he is seeking reelection to a 21st term. This is despite the ethical investigations that led him to leave a perch from which his Harlem constituents and others expected him to achieve so much – and despite a…

As Jamaican security forces widen their search for reputed drug lord Christopher Coke outside West Kingston, many are raising questions about the operation and its outcome. With Coke still at large after five days of searching, just 22 guns seized and 73 dead, security forces now have to answer to an independent inquiry that the Jamaica Government says will…

I was reading the newspaper in the library at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes when my old friend Buckwheat arrived. “Here I is, Brother White,” squeaked the diminutive Our Gang character. “What’s in the news?” “Well, the top story is about this fellow Paul and his provocative positions,” I replied. “He’s a libertarian, you…

Glenn Beck: Classy as ever Glenn Beck, who repeatedly and angrily tells his alleged persecutors to “leave the families alone,” spent a good chunk of his radio program this morning mocking and attacking the intelligence of President Obama’s 11-year-old daughter, Malia. Obama remarked yesterday during his press conference that Malia asked him of the Gulf…

Self-Sabotage: Obama claims responsibility for oil crisis http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100527/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_15 We’ll have two eggs, coffee and a side of self-sabotage please. Clearly President Barack Obama is not reading the Root.com. We’re not sure why he’s coming out now to claim responsibility for the BP Oil disaster – you know the one that dwarfs the amount of damage…