Free Republic

President-elect Barack Obama has been formulating plans for the stimulus package likely to be enacted shortly after he takes office. It is reputed to be in the area of $800 billion to $1.2 trillion, and he originally proposed to create 2.5 million jobs. More recently, however, he has adjusted his goal to be 3 to 3.5 million jobs because of analyses that show the probability the economy will lose 3.5 million jobs in all of 2009. Yet this goal should be juxtaposed against the size of the growing Black unemployment rate, estimated to be 12 percent at present, which would...

It was a historic moment for the Grand Old Party: At the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, black conservatives took center stage, delivered speeches in prime time, raised their voices in a gospel choir and locked hands with the white men who, by an overwhelming majority, run the party. By the end of the convention, the future national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, had emerged as black conservative stars, and a concerted effort by Republicans "to invent new black leaders" -- as former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) once put it -- was...