the browntable

Here’s a sentence I thought I would never, ever write: I agree with George Will. In two recent columns, the hard-core right wing analyst has argued that the U.S. should pull out from both Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s right. We never should have invaded Iraq. We went there on a lie and too many brave…

White House photographer Peter Souza captures a shot of Sasha Obama prowling around the Oval Office as her dad, President Obama, finishes up some paperwork.

It’s clearly crunch time on health care debate: The White House has announced that president Barack Obama will address a special joint session of Congress next Wednesday evening on the issue of health insurance reform. The State of the Union notwithstanding, there is no real precedent for this kind of single-issue major speech (Lyndon Johnson…

No sooner did the Supreme Court press office release details about the September 8th formal investiture ceremony of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, than word on the street (Massachusetts Avenue, that is) began to circulate that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens will resign at the end of the Court’s term next spring. Justice Stevens has apparently…

On September 1st, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele graced the stage in Washington once more for a town hall meeting hosted by the young black Republicans of Howard University. (For the sake of full disclosure I have to admit up front that I was, at one point, a Republican. I have since been exorcised…

Just when I thought that gun-toting, “universal healthcare is socialism!” shouting crazies could only be found in Rural Town USA or behind the Fox News desk, I was proved wrong, when liberal healthcare reformists began attacking RNC Chairman Michael Steele at Howard University. Steele was on HU’s campus speaking about—well, I’m not really sure what…

Michelle Obama’s Kitchen Garden has raised the hopes of local food activists since ground was broken way back in March 2009. THE ROOT has been in the dirt ever since, examining the frayed ties between black folks and the earth, and noting the first lady’s subtle push for health care reform over a lunch of…

The foreclosure wrecking ball plowing through black neighborhoods keeps swinging. Yesterday’s predatory, subprime lenders have been replaced by today’s speculating, absentee owners. Alyssa Katz has been on the housing predation story for at least a decade, and in this month’s American Prospect she investigates what’s happening to all those foreclosed houses piling up in black…

More thoughts on race and Mad Men Season 3 thus far: To recap, Racialicious’ Latoya Peterson, writing for Double X, argued that Mad Men Seasons 1 and 2 came up short in the show’s portrayal (or lack thereof) of racial issues in the overall narrative of late ‘50s/early ‘60s social change. I responded with my…

It’s been suggested that Obama needs an ‘uncle.’ In fact, every American president needs a Jiminy Cricket—a royal pain in the ass who won’t bend the rules for the sake of expediency, who upholds both the letter and the spirit of the law, who won’t just go with the flow. Someone, in short, like Attorney…