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Leading members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are lining up to skip a coming speech by the prime minister of Israel. Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon, and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), the chairman of the CBC, said they won't attend Benjamin Netanyahu's March 3 speech before Congress to protest Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) decision to invite the prime minister without first consulting President Obama and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill. Butterfield said that move marked an "unprecedented overreach of the Speaker’s authority" that "goes beyond the traditions of his office." "It is baffling that Speaker Boehner, who...

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Thursday called on President Obama to use executive authority and declare martial law in Ferguson, Mo., where protesters have clashed with police after the shooting of an unarmed black teenager. “My own feeling is right now is President Obama should use the authority of his office to declare martial law,” Lewis said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” “Federalize that Missouri National Guard to protect people as they protest,” Lewis, an icon of the 1960s civil rights movement, said it is “unreal” to see what the police are doing in Ferguson. “People have a right to...

John Lewis, the Democratic congressman from Georgia and civil rights icon, called on President Barack Obama to declare martial law in Ferguson, Missouri, on Thursday as a necessary response to the blunders of local police. Lewis says the police have responded to largely peaceful protests over the slaying of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, with excessive force reminiscent of the 1960s. “My own feeling is right now is that President Obama should use the authority of his office to declare martial law, federalize the Missouri National Guard to protect people as they protest," Lewis said during an interview on...

Georgia Rep. John Lewis has called on President Obama to declare martial law in Ferguson, Mo. The congressman made the public call Thursday afternoon as protesters continue to clash with police in Ferguson after a cop shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown Saturday night. …

The number of Americans who see illegal immigration as the nation's most pressing problem has spiked from 3 per cent to 17 per cent since May, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday. That percentage now tops government corruption, the U.S. economy, jobs, health care and every other hot-button issue, driven by a flood of tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border. 'We are all connected. We can't just build a wall or a fence and say no more,' Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis tweeted on Tuesday. 'This is America. Our doors are open.' The...

The Obama administration is under fire from powerful House Democrats and some in the civil rights community for its recent picks to fill four judicial vacancies on Georgia’s Northern District federal bench. The rift came into the spotlight during a Monday morning press conference, where civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Democrat, and others urged the White House to withdraw its four Dec. 19 nominations. “The group cites serious concerns that the proposed candidates do not adequately reflect the diversity of the northern district and that the selection process lacked meaningful community input,” the coalition of critics said in...

Pelosi: Redskins should change name By Bob Cusack - 10/28/13 06:00 AM ET Rep. Nancy Pelosi believes the Washington Redskins should find a new name. In an interview with The Hill, the California Democrat said it “probably would be a good idea if they change the name.” The House minority leader is the latest politician who has embraced a name change. President Obama earlier this month said he would “think about changing” the team name if he owned the football team. Pelosi noted that when she was growing up in Baltimore, the city didn’t have a football team. “So one...

October 29, 2013Rep. John Lewis compares opposition to Obamacare to racismAlex Pappas Georgia Rep. John Lewis on Tuesday compared Republican opposition to President Obama’s health-care law to racism. The Democratic lawmaker made the comments comparing the Republican resistance to Obamacare to the opposition to civil rights in the the 1950s during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing with Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Referencing the numerous Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare over the last several years, Lewis said: “Just reminds me of another period in our history. Not so long ago during...

Rtightened his handcuffs. “I thought I’d be treated better ep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said police who arrested him Tuesday by the Capitol Police than I was,” Rangel said on FOX Business Network Friday. Rangel was one of several Democratic lawmakers arrested by U.S. Capitol Police at an immigration reform rally on the National Mall. “I think they were trying to help me, but the cuffs were so tight that when I said loosen up the cuffs — and I wasn’t cursing then — in an attempt to loosen it up, one of the rookie cops actually tightened it,” he said....

“I’m heartened by the signals that Majority Leader Cantor has sent that he might be willing to support [altering the Voting Rights Act], and I’m hopeful that Mr. Boehner will look into his heart, and more importantly, look into the eyes of John Lewis, and recognize that on this one, any sort of recent tradition of we don’t put anything forward unless the majority of the party is in alignment, that in this case it might be worth to let that be the exception,” Jealous said, responding to an audience question about the Republican Party’s political future. . . ....

Upon the anniversary of the March on Washington, John Lewis spoke to Meet the Press’ David Gregory about the legacy of the civil rights movement Sunday morning, encouraging America to embrace, not fear, the shifting demographics of the electorate that would put minorities in a place of political power. “I think some forces want to create this sense of fear,” Lewis said. “They think that the country is moving too fast, or maybe becoming too progressive. The country’s not the same country. People are coming together. And in a short time, the minority will be the majority.” Lewis is the...

Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis -- who as a 23-year old civil rights activist helped organize the 1963 "March on Washington" -- said on Sunday that Martin Luther King, Jr. should be looked upon as one of America's founding fathers. Lewis said that he "saw hundreds and hundreds of young people" at the 50th anniversary events in Washington on Saturday, and "I said to myself, 'This is it', Dr. King must be looked upon as one of the founding fathers of a new America," said Lewis on ABC's "This Week." "He helped hold us together."

Senior Democrats and leaders of the civil rights and labor movements marked the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington by summoning a younger generation of activists to fight for a restoration of the Voting Rights Act to ensure universal access to the ballot box. As thousands ringed the Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial, speakers mixed themes of the past and present in paying tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the iconic “I Have A Dream” speech he delivered to combat racial discrimination. “Those days, for the most part, are gone, but we have...

*Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis was a main attraction at the 2013 Comic-Con International comic book convention in San Diego; where he went to promote his new graphic novel “March.”*Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis was a main attraction at the 2013 Comic-Con International comic book convention in San Diego; where he went to promote his new graphic novel “March.” “March” tells the story of Lewis’ role in the civil rights march and the demonstrations he helped lead as a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activist in the 1960s. As expected, Lewis received a “hero’s welcome” at the convention...

Tracy Martin, father of Trayvon Martin, the African-American teen slain in Sanford, Fla., by acquitted gunman George Zimmerman, will address members of Congress on Wednesday, sharing his thoughts on the black experience in the United States at the inaugural meeting of the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys. The group discussion on “The Status of Black Males: Ensuring Our Boys Mature Into Strong Men” is scheduled to take place from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Room 2737 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Ex-Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., Georgetown University sociology professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and Obama administration...

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is no stranger to racial violence. On March 7, 1965, Lewis—then the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—helped lead a 600-person march for voting rights from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery. As the march moved out of Selma, roughly 150 state troopers, sheriff's deputies, and "possemen" stopped the demonstrators on a bridge. One minute and five seconds after being ordered to disperse, clubs, tear gas, and bullwhips came down on the demonstrators. John Lewis was knocked down, called a "black bitch" and other racial epithets, hit on the ground with a billy club, and then hit...

April 23, 2013 New Congressional Quest: End Prison Phone Call Price Gouging Bridget Johnson The Congressional Black Caucus Working Group on Prison Telecomm Reform is protesting high call costs for phone-homers behind bars. The CBC group will hold a press conference with former inmates and family members “to expose the often exorbitant rates that prisoners and their families are being charged for telephone calls and to announce the CBC response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to resolve the issue after more than a decade of delay,” according to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D)...

Ann Coulter October 24, 2012 OBAMA: HALF-BLACK BUT ALL DEMOCRAT New York can be a lonely and desolate city. My only date on this rainy Tuesday night is Chris Matthews -- the last liberal left who will still talk to me about race. The rest of the Non-Fox Media are lying in wait, hoping I'll disappear so they can revive the old chestnuts about racist Republicans again. Among many such myths, there's Reagan's Philadelphia speech, George W. Bush's speech at Bob Jones University, someone yelling "Kill him" at the mention of Barack Obama's name at a Sarah Palin rally,...

Yesterday, Georgia Democrat Congressman John Lewis of Georgia’s 5th District used the race card tactic with his speech at the Democratic National Convention in pressing points that if Romney wins in November, surely the GOP and Romney will send African-Americans back to the days of segregation. After three minutes of telling the story of the days of segregation when he and other Africans-Americans were forcibly denied access to restaurants, public transportation and the ballot box, Lewis asked, “Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? The democratic audience shouted no. After continuing using race as a reference in relation...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Rep. John Lewis used his Thursday convention speech to argue that a GOP victory in November will send African-Americans back to the early 1960s, when he and other Africans-Americans were forcibly denied access to restaurants, public transportation and the ballot box. “I’ve seen this before, I lived this before,” he claimed, after extensively describing his activism in Southern states in the 1950 and 1960s. “We were met by an angry mob that beat us and left us lying in a pool of blood,” he said to raucous applause from roughly 20,000 delegates and activists. “Brothers and sisters,...