George W. Bush’s victory in 2004 has been credited to Latino voters. Some political commentators have even claimed that a majority of Latinos elected Bush in the 2004 presidential election. The statistics disprove the latter claim. Yet Latino votes in certain swing states did lead to a Bush wi

The Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez was heading back to his office one day when he came upon a homeless African-American man playing Beethoven on a battered violin at a busy street corner Lopez learned that the man Nathaniel Ayers had once been a promising student at the famed Juilliard S

Now that the general election season is underway we are beginning to hear absurd mantras like True leaders don t change their minds My opponent flip flopped My thinking on fill in the blank is the same today yesterday and tomorrow I find this certitude bordering on idolatry--and it

First John McCain and now President Bush have announced support for lifting the ban on offshore drilling along America s coastline in response to the rise in gas prices This is an idea that only an oil man could love but then of course Bush is an oil man so we should not be surprised McCain

The image of a classic Catholic pol is Mayor Richard Daley or someone very much like him Daley built and ran a political machine that used patronage and politics to deliver government services to his constituents and re-election victories to himself His son has carried on the tradition and it is a

An ABC News Washington Post poll this morning focuses attention on independent voters those who do not identify with either political party Increasingly this is the largest group of the electorate as partisan identification declines for both Democrats and Republicans The bad news for John McCa

The frontline in the abortion wars is no longer the Supreme Court If Roe v Wade was overturned tomorrow most states would enact its provisions legislatively Some might include restrictions on late term abortions which would be a fine thing but most abortions are not late term Crisis pregnancy

In politics as in life the squeaky wheel gets the oil So our discussion of foreign affairs tends to focus on the trouble spots the on-going war in Iraq the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran the paranoid regime in Myanmar the genocide in Darfur But our political leaders should not look simply a

Few issues invite equal measures of demagoguery from both political parties as aging Republicans warn that Social Security will run dry when advocating their privatization schemes Democrats scare seniors with the specter of Wall Street bankers robbing them of their Social Security checks Politica

It is in the Acts of the Apostles that we hear most about Barnabas He is famous as a preaching companion with Paul in present-day Turkey with all the attendant success failure and persecution of Paul Prior to that he was grouped with Christians at Antioch who were known as having special gifts