the browntable

In good news for both women and environmentalists, the NEW YORK TIMES flags a heartening story from the heart of the Amazon, one with fantastic implications for politics in Brazil and all of South America. Marina Silva has announced that she will be the first black woman to stand for the office of the presidency.…

On the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, President Barack Obama didn’t pay the Gulf Coast a visit in person, but spoke to the whole country about the need to continue focusing federal rebuilding efforts in the city that sank. His words: Over this week of remembrance, THE ROOT has celebrated New Orleans history and shaken…

There is much about the HIV/AIDS epidemic that’s terribly complicated. The wily bug itself has defied science’s best efforts to kill it for three decades. That said, there are also simple truths we’re all too ready to ignore, particularly when it comes to prevention. I’m referring to neither the abstinence-until-marriage fantasy nor the just-wear-a-condom mantra;…

When Sen. Ted Kennedy eulogized Robert Kennedy in June 1968, he also offered what may be the most fitting coda for his own remarkable public life. Of RFK, he declared, My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent…

The overnight news that the Democratic Party’s long-serving Senator, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, has passed away, marked the end of an era in American politics. That’s a fine cliché, but there is no doubt that an enormous body of legislative accomplishment—the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 Immigration bill, the SCHIP program, the Americans with Disabilities…

Attorney General Eric Holder is taking his job as top cop of the United States to heart, and is appointing a special prosecutor to get to the heart of CIA misconduct involving interrogations of suspected terrorists during the tenure of George W. Bush. Holder’s move, which the NEW YORK TIMES is calling “the most politically…

The technology writer and rudimentary artist Dan Roam decided that the American conversation on health care reform should be simple enough to explain on the back of a napkin. So he gave it a shot. Watch: Healthcare Napkins All —DAYO OLOPADE Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.

Between the misinformation spread by conservative interest groups and the unapologetic fearmongering by Republican lawmakers, our nation’s health care debate is being hijacked for political gain. After weeks of emotionally charged town halls, where rumors of death panels and government access to bank accounts have dominated, it’s apparent that not just the 47 million uninsured…

American Enterprise Institute fellow Tim Mak, who writes for conservative columnist David Frum’s NewMarjority.com, explains the increasing rage in rightwing radio this way: Follow the money. In a post earlier this month, Mak argued the shrinking ad market for talk radio is driving conservative yappers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh into ever-deepening vitriol. He…

Polls are coming at us fast and furious these days. But two stood out to me this week as proving, once again, all you have to do to make a lie into the truth is repeat it loud enough and often enough. First, the Pew Research Center for People & the Press’ weekly survey of…