The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, overturned the atrocious Dred Scott ruling and guaranteed full citizenship rights to black Americans in the wake of the Civil War. The amendment’s language mandating equal protection under the law provided the basis for the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that ended segregation in public schools.“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said in a statement. That’s about as clear as you can get.Those tempted to see the NAACP’s stance as purely symbolic haven’t read the fine print. The resolution commits the organization to “oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove ... Continue reading →
(Chuck Brown is photographed for the cover of the Washington Post Sunday Magazine in 2009. (MARVIN JOSEPH / THE WASHINGTON POST) ) “For me, the intensely local nature of go-go is a reminder that Washington is an actual place, not a political abstraction.” — Eugene Robinson With Chuck Brown’s passing, Washington feels less like Washington. As columnist Eugene Robinson explains to the uninitiated, go-go legend Chuck Brown didn’t just create a genre of music, he managed to create music tied to a place. That ability to make lasting associations between places and music certainly isn’t unique to the “Godfather of go-go.” There are obviously other musicians whose sounds have come to define the streets and neighborhoods where their music is played. You say “Springsteen,” I ... Continue reading →
Viscerally, it was irresistible. To be on a dance floor in the late 1970s, before the mirrored ball became a cliche, was to be assaulted by thumping bass and screaming synthesizers until you surrendered and let the music carry you along. For all its space-age sheen, disco was all about music’s most ancient and primal element, the beat. It was about becoming what diva Grace Jones called a “slave to the rhythm.” Harmony and melody, for most artists, were afterthoughts.But not for Donna Summer. Only a handful had the pipes to sing with expressiveness, subtlety and control above the clamorous frenzy of a disco groove, and Summer was one of them. Her voice had what seemed like effortless power. You got the sense that if ... Continue reading →
And what might Romney’s proposed economic policies be? Why, they’re basically the same as those of George W. Bush, only worse.Just as Obama owns the recession and the slow recovery, Bush owns the financial crisis that sent the slumping economy over a cliff. But for all his sins — the gratuitous tax cuts, the off-budget wars, the defiance of basic arithmetic — Bush at least demonstrated a certain empathy for Americans who struggle to make ends meet. One of his budget-busting initiatives, for example, was expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs without worrying about how this much-needed new benefit would be paid for.It’s safe to predict that Romney would never make such a gesture out of compassion for the beleaguered middle class. To this day, ... Continue reading →
And what might Romney’s proposed economic policies be? Why, they’re basically the same as those of George W. Bush, only worse.Just as Obama owns the recession and the slow recovery, Bush owns the financial crisis that sent the slumping economy over a cliff. But for all his sins — the gratuitous tax cuts, the off-budget wars, the defiance of basic arithmetic — Bush at least demonstrated a certain empathy for Americans who struggle to make ends meet. One of his budget-busting initiatives, for example, was expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs without worrying about how this much-needed new benefit would be paid for.It’s safe to predict that Romney would never make such a gesture out of compassion for the beleaguered middle class. To this day, ... Continue reading →
Nor do I understand Obama’s criteria for deciding that his “evolving” view on gay marriage had completed its transformation. Was it only half-baked, say, a month ago?Ultimately, history will care only that Obama was the first president to acknowledge that same-sex marriage is a national issue involving the civil rights of millions of Americans. The astonishment and joy expressed by so many gay people nationwide after Obama’s announcement Wednesday showed what a big deal this is.We all know where this is heading. Obama said that although he supports same-sex marriage, the decision should be left up to the states. That would seem to bode ill, since 30 states have amended their constitutions to prohibit gay marriage; on Tuesday, North Carolina overwhelmingly approved such an amendment, ... Continue reading →
On Sunday, French voters elected Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande as president, ousting center-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in what amounted to a referendum on Sarkozy’s embrace of austerity.Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on a common policy of budget cuts and partial “reform” — a euphemism for “dismantling” — of the welfare state. This, they decided, was the way to return Europe to prosperity and save the European Union’s common currency, the euro, from collapse.But on Sunday, even Merkel got a message from voters: Her party was punished in local elections in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where it appeared that a center-left, anti-austerity coalition would end up in control.Also on Sunday, voters in Greece tried their best to say no to austerity. ... Continue reading →
According to Obama, “the United States and our allies went to war to make sure that al-Qaeda could never use this country to launch attacks against us.” I would argue that U.S. and NATO forces have already done all that is humanly possible toward that end.The Taliban government was deposed and routed. Al-Qaeda was first dislodged and then decimated, with “over 20 of their top 30 leaders” killed, according to the president. Osama bin Laden was tracked to his lair in Pakistan, shot dead and buried at sea. To the extent that al-Qaeda still poses a threat, it comes from affiliate organizations in places such as Yemen and from the spread of poisonous jihadist ideology. Al-Qaeda’s once-extensive training camps in Afghanistan have long been obliterated, ... Continue reading →
According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which keeps track of changes in voting laws, 22 statutes and two executive actions aimed at restricting the franchise have been approved in 17 states since the beginning of 2011. By the center’s count, an additional 74 such bills are pending.The most popular means of discouraging those young and minority voters — who, coincidentally, tend to vote for Democrats — is legislation requiring citizens to show government-issued photo identification before they are allowed to cast a ballot. Photo ID bills have been approved by Republican-controlled legislatures in Alabama, Kansas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin, and by referendum in Mississippi. Only one state with a Democratic-controlled legislature — Rhode Island — passed ... Continue reading →
Perhaps this week’s most significant news was a report from the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center showing that net migration from Mexico to the United States has slowed to a halt and may actually have reversed. That’s right: There may be more people leaving this country to live in Mexico than leaving Mexico to live here.End of the “crisis” — which wasn’t really a crisis at all, except in overwhelmed border-state cities such as Phoenix. There’s no longer the slightest excuse for histrionics about the alleged threat to our way of life from invading hordes intent on — shudder — working hard and raising their families.Why the turnaround? The report cites “many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a ... Continue reading →
