Politics

It was a poor man’s State of the Union—but we are all poor now! And, like a responsible parent, President Barack Obama wouldn’t let us forget it last night. Despite the sobering tumbles of financial markets and the steady uptick in job-loss numbers, the president asked the American people and their elected leaders in Congress…

Alan Keyes is a despicable lunatic. In an incredible screed now available on YouTube, Keyes denounces President Obama as a non-citizen, radical communist, abortionist, murderer bent on the destruction of the United States. He openly refuses to address President Obama by his title, instead referring to him as an “alleged usurper,” whose supposedly debatable claim…

It is a good thing that the president’s address to Congress tonight is not billed as a State of the Union. We all know the sorry state of the union right now, and no one really wants to spend an hour gawking at it in prime time. For Barack Obama, tonight is about successfully communicating…

It never fails. Every time I appear on the Fox News Network or as a guest on Sean Hannity’s show, I can count on receiving a good deal of angry e-mails from black folk.  The e-mails are never directed at what I say. They are furious rants directed at me for going on the so-called…

R&B superstar John Legend has weighed in on the N.Y. Post cartoon controversy with an open letter to the editor, in which he promises a personal boycott and urges readers and advertisers to join him. Here is the full text: Dear Editor: Iʼm trying to understand what possible motivation you may have had for publishing…

Yes, I saw the cartoon published by the New York Post. Yes, it was insensitive, and yes, it was racist. Everyone knows that the imagery of a monkey serves as a powerful slur against African Americans, especially black men. The New York Post should be ashamed. But, if we are going to organize a protest…

Has it really only been a month since Barack Obama was sworn in as president? So much has happened in that short time. He has not only signed into law a humongous economic stimulus package that is the biggest spending bill in American history, but also ordered a 50 percent increase, to 51,000, in American troops in Afghanistan. He…

Eric Holder’s confrontational speech to members of the Justice Department on Wednesday spoke plainly and bluntly about the level of racial discourse in America. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot,” he said, “in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially…

Does anyone remember the moaning and gnashing of teeth when Barack Obama was elected president? Not from defeated Republicans but from professional comedians, saddened when George W. Bush—and the comedic gold mine that was his presidency—took that last helicopter ride out of D.C. They worried that it would be difficult to make fun of the…

A couplet…  Detroit is the blackest city in America. And after witnessing New Orleans, another venerable majority-black city, go down for the count in 2005, by way of government indifference in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it behooves President Barack Obama to do everything he can to help save Motown and its auto industry.  This…