Over at Politico.com. Jeanne Cummings has an interesting look at the array of big players lining up on both sides of the battle to turn back the law on ethanol subsidies. As consumers are squeezed between paying for their groceries or filling their tanks (the role that biofuels play in that tradeoff was ably explained [...]
Karl Meyer reminds us that the deal that ended the British Mandate in Iraq in 1930 bears no small resemblance to the Status of Forces Agreement being negotiated with the Iraqis now. I’m not sure that Meyer has the outlines of the deal right: no way will there be 58 long-term U.S. bases. But the [...]
Todd Gitlin, via Hilzoy, has picked up on a rather sticky environmental problem for John McCain: he seems a bit confused about the nature of carbon emissions cap and trade programs–a problem, since he claims to support one. Cap-and-trade regimes enforce a gradual, but mandatory, cap on carbon emissions levels while setting up a market [...]
Not one.
Like millions of Americans living in New York City at the time, I depended on Rudy Giuliani in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001. With the city still smoldering, President Bush in an apparent state of shock, and Vice President Cheney absconded to an undisclosed location, Giuliani was the only leader who seemed able [...]
“Change” doesn’t have quite the same resonance in Romania, where one village last weekend re-elected a dead man as mayor: “I know he died, but I don’t want change,” a pro-Ivascu villager told Romanian television.
Obama putting former Clinton campaign chief Patti Solis-Doyle in a leadership position is a significant move, and it is a message about Hillary Clinton’s role in Obama’s campaign. The message is this: “*&$@# you.” And Clinton supporters understand it that way. The Note rounded up a sampling of the bitter clinginess (clinging bitterness). The most [...]
The New York Times’ Elisabeth Bumiller does the voting public a great service today by taking a shot at evaluating the similarities and differences between President Bush and John McCain on the major issues of the day. Her conclusions: They Mostly Agree On: Abortion and Judges, Education, Diplomacy with Iran and Syria, Immigration, Iraq (though [...]
I know you’re going to be shocked: A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain [...]
