The Supreme Court just declared that the Civil War is no longer relevant to the history and administration of racial justice in America.
In a sense, the court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder validated a generations-long effort -- first by Democrats and later by Ronald Reagan and the Bush family -- to throw off the moral weight that slavery and the Civil War had placed on the South. [...]
The Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder is a setback for democracy — especially at the local level.
Overwhelming evidence shows that too many politicians continue to win elections by unfairly manipulating election rules based on how voters look or talk. The Court’s decision makes this problem worse. The biggest problem will be the manipulation of election rules for local offices that are often non-partisan and escape national attention.
Members of Congress are calling on the government to get out in front of the growing income gap by addressing the low wages paid within its own buildings.
In a July 2 letter to President Barack Obama, 17 House Democrats said the government needs to take action toward the fair treatment and decent pay of its unskilled service-contract employees, particularly those working at iconic sites such as Union Station, the Smithsonian and the National Zoo.
The Supreme Court of the United States must be criticized for blindness, perhaps even willful ignorance of reality, in their recent decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.
Voting rights activists have seized upon a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in an effort to mitigate the damage done by the Supreme Court earlier this month in the case of Shelby County, Alabama v. Attorney General Eric Holder. According to Adam Serwer at MSNBC.com, the state of Texas may still be subject to the federal government’s approval before it can rearrange voting districts or make changes to election law.
Without a doubt, the big banks should be broken up; the need is even more urgent than it was in 2007 or 2008. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – hardly an Occupy Wall Street affiliate – titled its 2011 Annual Report "Choosing the Road to Prosperity: Why We Must End Too Big to Fail – Now."
The attack on voting rights in North Carolina is a shameful attempt by the state’s politicians to curtail access to the ballot, in ways devised particularly to discourage voting by African-Americans.
And you thought the government didn’t have a jobs program. It does. The problem is that the pay and benefits are lousy, and in many cases the working conditions ain’t so great either.
Financial markets, now heavily dependent on technology, need to be safeguarded against cyberattacks, natural disasters and the more prosaic scourge of human error that can cause massive disruptions, according to experts and a federal panel.
Today President Obama will give a major economic address in Illinois, the first in a series of speeches designed to refocus the national conversation on job creation and the struggling economy.
Whatever growth in GDP or reductions in unemployment, most Americans think the economy stinks. According to a new CBS poll, more than 60 percent of people polled rate the economy as "bad." And well they should: For the vast majority of Americans, economic gains during the recovery have almost entirely gone to the people at the very top.
I am of course glad to see President Obama focus the country on what he correctly identifies as the most pressing national problem, the crushing of the middle class. The solution he laid out in his address at Knox College, a middle-out economics which sees the middle class as the engine of the economy, is both good economics and a powerful political message. It is what progressives and Democrats need to keep emphasizing over and over again, both rhetorically and in their legislative agendas.
Picking a new chairman of the Federal Reserve may be the most important nomination a president can make. The next Fed chair will play an instrumental role in determining the future trajectory of America’s straggling recovery, and determining how financial regulation gets implemented.
The next big campaign finance case to go before the Supreme Court began in February 2012 in the grand ballroom at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel during the "Ronald Reagan Banquet" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
I am of course glad to see President Obama focus the country on what he correctly identifies as the most pressing national problem, the crushing of the middle class. The solution he laid out in his address at Knox College, a middle-out economics which sees the middle class as the engine of the economy, is both good economics and a powerful political message. It is what progressives and Democrats need to keep emphasizing over and over again, both rhetorically and in their legislative agendas.
In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, reports of harassment and intimidation at the polls were so rampant in North Carolina that the state's top election official was obliged to send a memo to his employees reminding them that they could call police if necessary.
The United States spent around $3.6 trillion last year, on products, services, and employment, including contractors. Which companies benefited from these lucrative deals with our government? And what were our conditions on their performance? Shouldn't we, as the taxpayers that are funding these purchases, be able to expect the beneficiaries of these contracts to act in a way that reflects our values?