Politics

After nearly 15 years of writing about AIDS, I’m forced to acknowledge that nobody needs to hear much else from people like me about this epidemic. For too long the conversation about HIV in black America has been one-way: Wonks talk, sometimes people listen and then it’s over. So on this World AIDS Day, we’re…

Not long after President Obama’s election, the former Chief Judge and one of the most conservative members of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote a startling and unprecedented op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post called “Storming the Court.” In it, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who for years joined with Jesse Helms in opposing…

That man who sits atop the federal government organizational chart is clear evidence of the enormous progress the country has made in regard to its troubled history with race relations. But it has very quickly become a dominant meme of the Obama age to debate the extent to which the stupendous changes at the top…

It is the focus of a heated media controversy—a wrenching tale of horrific abuse by a father figure, teenage sex and out-of-wedlock birth, the pathological breakdown of social norms in an oft-neglected corner of society. And I’m going to take a pass on this one. Gotcha, didn’t I? You thought I was referring to Precious:…

In July, the Islamic Association of Raleigh, N.C., hosted “Meet Your Muslim Neighbor”—an event designed to build bridges and educate the non-Muslim community about different facets of Islamic life and culture beyond common negative stereotypes. Two days later, the FBI arrested seven Muslim men from a neighboring town for alleged involvement in a terror conspiracy.…

When Illinois Sen. Roland Burris took office almost a year ago, he already appeared to be a lame-duck politician. After being appointed by the shady Gov. Rod Blagojevich in late December, Burris found himself shrouded in a haze of suspicion and controversy. With such a troubled introduction to national politics, it seemed as if “Blago’s…

The battle lines in the war over America’s financial future have been drawn. You probably missed it in the myopic 24-hour news cycle, but after two years of bailouts and green shoots, we’ve finally turned to the task of reforming Wall Street. And we’re likely to peer into history’s rearview mirror one day and realize…

I don’t believe in capital punishment, but I will be glad if John Allen Muhammad is executed tonight. I wish someone had shot him down in the street before he and his witless teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, went on their murderous spree, killing 10, wounding others and terrorizing the entire populations of Washington, D.C.,…

It’s fashionable to bash lawyers in this country. The truth is that the vast majority of lawyers are hard-working, ethical, committed to the rule of law and vindicating the rights of their clients. But the Supreme Court has two cases before it that will determine the consequences of lawyer conduct that falls below or outside…

On Thursday afternoon, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly drew his handgun inside a processing center at Ft. Hood, Texas, cried “Allahu Akhbar” and began firing. By the time the rampage was ended by a civilian police officer named Sgt. Kimberly D. Munley, Hasan allegedly killed 13 people and injured dozens of others. Since…