Politics

Conventional wisdom has it that some of the president’s 2008 campaign luster has worn off with Independent voters—thus the GOP sweep that took place yesterday in New Jersey, Virginia and almost in New York’s 23rd district. I’m not sure that I agree with that assessment, as Tuesday’s election results should not be confused with the…

Before there were tea partiers, there were nurses. Angry nurses disrupting Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform meetings back in the politically halcyon days of spring. Their complaint was simple: Democrats refused to even discuss proposals for single-payer, universal coverage. But unlike the deference that anti-reform zealots won this summer, all the nurses got for…

Anthony Sowell, a Cleveland man who had already served fifteen years for raping and assaulting a woman, apparently used his freedom to kill at least five more women and bury them about his home and property. He was arrested Saturday after police—who were there to serve him an arrest and search warrant—discovered the bodies of…

As our discussion veered from how the quest for filthy lucre overtook evading communist sensors as an overarching concern for some Chinese filmmakers, to a lament for the folkways that get lost in the name of economic progress in countries around the world, I was again reminded why I love, love, love my Sojourner’s Book…

On June 8, Archer Mapp’s mortgage payment doubled. Wachovia, his bank, took twice what they had regularly debited from his bank account. It wasn’t because his adjustable-rate mortgage reset. Mapp, who lives in Washington, has steady, full-time employment. For 13 years, he and his family have lived in a Capitol Hill row house. Before June,…

It’s hard being a black Republican these days. That’s one reason why I admire Sophia Nelson. She reps a small-government, Jack Kemp-inspired brand of Republicanism that emphasizes the imperative of fostering entrepreneurship in communities of color. If you’ve ever caught her appearances on CNN or MSNBC, you know she’s a far more credible spokesperson for…

This week the voters in the state of Maine will go to the polls to decide on a gay marriage referendum that is widely considered a test case for the rest of the nation. This vote is so important that Californians who successfully organized in support of Proposition 8, and thus outlawed gay marriage there,…

Black folks shouldn’t have their “black card” revoked just because they don’t share the opinions or conventional political views of the black community. There is a troubling trend emerging in the black community relative to our freedom of speech and the right to dissent. I have been attacked and vilified, marginalized by some because I…

The daily death toll in Afghanistan makes it hard to see beyond the horizon. Twelve killed Wednesday in a home used by UN staffers; eight soldiers dead the day before. This in addition to hundreds killed this week in neighboring Pakistan and in Iraq. As the administration considers its options on Afghanistan, much of the…

Back in 2007, foreclosure seemed inevitable for Jenie McCaslin, a 70-year old African-American widow, who was unable to maintain the high monthly payments on a loan agreement she entered to refinance the mortgage on her southwest Atlanta home. Desperate to save the home she had lived in for nearly 40 years, Ms. McCaslin sought help…