Politics

“National Guard troops patrolled the streets of Chicago’s Negro West Side last night and early today. For the first time in four nights there was no major violence in the riot-torn ghetto area.” That was the first paragraph of a New York Times article that ran on Saturday, July 16, 1966. If Illinois state representatives…

That giant sucking sound you hear is the sound of the great debate promised by Rand Paul’s quixotic Senate candidacy slowly circling the drain. After all, why would anyone bother to sort through deficits, taxes and the role of modern American government? They can just go on The Rachel Maddow Show and have a good,…

Updated May 20, 2010 at 9:10 a.m. Could an NAACP boycott of Texas be in the offing? NAACP President Ben Jealous said Tuesday that “all options are on the table” if sweeping conservative changes to the state’s educational curriculum are enacted this week. Jealous testified before the Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday in the hopes…

Tuesday’s primary election results will only serve to reinforce the anti-incumbency narrative that has overlaid much of the media coverage of this election season thus far. According to the polls and the pundits, voters are angry at Washington and at political incumbents of all stripes, but especially at Democrats, who, we are told, will pay…

A year ago, if you had told President Barack Obama that all he had to do in exchange for Sen. Arlen Specter’s decisive votes on the stimulus, healthcare, and what he thought would by now be a done deal on cap-and-trade was one quick press conference to tepidly “endorse” Specter’s return to the Democratic party—and…

They were armed to the teeth. They were mad. They gathered at public buildings, guns tucked into their waistlines, demanding limited governmental authority and the right to self-determination. They believed the Democratic White House to be an untrustworthy, imperialistic power, one that “robbed” them under spurious circumstances. They were wary of the “Zionist media,” and…

What should be done with citizens—naturalized or native born—who commit acts of terror in collaboration with international terror cells? Some officials, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, are suggesting that we modify Miranda rights to cover terrorism when such crimes are committed by American citizens. For others, including Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), there is no…

Arkansas has never elected an African American to a federal office — ever — much less a black woman. That could change this year as two candidates — one Democrat, one Republican — attempt to diversify the congressional delegation of this Old South state. Democrat Joyce Elliott, 59, a state legislator and retired schoolteacher, is…

Anderson Cooper sits down and discusses color preference with a few youngsters. It’s…heartbreaking.

With the recent deaths of former NAACP executive director Benjamin L. Hooks, 85; civil rights icon Dorothy I. Height, 98; and entertainer Lena Horne, 92, I am reminded that our cultural giants are mere men and women, like the rest of us. They are ordinary people who live and die, as we all will. Of…