Step aside, Silvio Berlusconi! We have a winner. Whoo boy. Where to start with this? A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.” [snip] Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible. [...]

The White House is backing away from today’s New York Time’s front-page story checking in on immigration—the hot button issue in 2006 and 2007. The story pretty much ruined Nick Shapiro’s day; Shapiro, one of a bevy of White House spokesmen who divvy up issues, has the up-until-today easy task of dealing with immigration press [...]

Though as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has clearly moved on, it seems she is still trying to pay off her campaign debt. Below is a fundraising e-mail just received from James Carville. My favorite is the American Idol option — wonder how they scored those tickets? Dear Jay, I knew it was going to [...]

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is facing a tough primary in 2010. Remember all those new Democrats Barack Obama’s campaign registered in the Keystone State? Well, 160,000 of them were Republicans that switched their registration – a huge chunk of Specter’s base. The moderate Republican squeaked through a 2004 primary challenge from former Rep. Pat Toomey [...]

Let it not be said that we don’t do our part to bring you news large and small from the White House. To wit: this year’s souvenir Easter egg has just been made public–and according to the White House press release, it’s “the ‘greenest’ egg in White House Easter Egg Roll history.” Of course the [...]

There’s a fantastic piece over at The New Republic today looking into Silvio Berlusconi’s, ahem, colorful turns of phrase and less-than-diplomatic behavior. The Italian prime minister’s remark this week telling citizens who lost their homes in the Abruzzo earthquake that they should consider their time in aid camps “a weekend of camping” was not, by [...]

With Admiral Mullen and Richard Holbrooke in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This piece, by my colleague Aryn Baker, gives an excellent sense of the frustrations and necessity of the war in one northeast Afghanistani valley.

I might as well just admit that I think it’s quite cool that the White House now has a vegetable garden–and beehives!–on the grounds. But what strikes me most about the whole enterprise is that Michelle Obama appears to have adopted a whole class of 5th graders at Bancroft Elementary School in D.C. According to [...]

Silvio Berlusconi on the 17,000 Italians left homeless by the Abruzzo earthquake: They should see it like a weekend of camping. George W. Bush is just kicking himself for not using that little gem in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.