Ta-Nehisi Coates makes the case for reparations in the cover story of this month’s Atlantic. He puts it this way:
“Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.”
Once upon a time there was gridlock. Those were the good old days when the House routinely blocked any hope of passing anything that the president wanted passed. But now, there is an excellent chance that the Republicans will also take control of the Senate, which means that we’ll have gridlock on top of gridlock on top of gridlock, in a two year Congress vs. Obama standoff. John Cassidy explains what it would mean, via the New Yorker.
Mitch McConnell says if Republicans win the majority, he’ll make the Senate work. Of course, he has to get re-elected first and explain what Harry Reid calls his 540 filibusters. Via the Hill.
Ramesh Ponnuru makes the case that the Tea Party isn’t dead, because it never actually existed. Via Bloomberg.
Tom Steyer explains why he’s getting in the climate-change race. Via the Huffington Post.
Timothy Egan writes that we don’t know much about history: You can’t fix stupid, but you don’t have to teach it. Via the New York Times.
The 1 percent isn’t the biggest problem with inequality. College is. Via the Washington Post.
[ Photo: “Woman being held by two policemen” by Bruce L. Davidson, 1963, a scene from the violent response to that year’s campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama. ]
