A rather strange column today by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post: the Europeans are concerned by Barack Obama’s “indecision” on Afghanistan: They know that if the deployment goes forward, they will be asked to make their own difficult and politically costly contributions of soldiers or other personnel. But they are, if anything, even more [...]
Sometimes, as a journalist, you just sense the play behind the play. Rahm Emanuel’s statement yesterday that more troops would not be forthcoming until the Karzai government got its act together reflects sentiments I’ve heard expressed by several of the key non-military decision makers in the Afghan policy review. On the surface, it seemed designed [...]
This is good news. But why not legalize it, tax it and use the proceeds to pay for health care reform?
“People talk glibly of ‘the total disarmament of the frontier tribes’ as being the obvious policy,” wrote the young Winston Churchill, who gallivanted, a bit too gleefully, with a 19th century British expeditionary force through the areas where al-Qaeda and the Taliban are now ensconced. “But to obtain it would be as painful and as [...]
Democrats are taking it to the next level in their smackdown with insurers.
The Republicans’ famed discipline is cracking. As Politico’s Lisa Lerer and Manu Raju reported this week, Lindsey Graham’s wheeling and dealing on global warming. And, of course, Olympia Snowe is the lady of the hour, week and month on health care (as much as Nancy Pelosi downplays her importance). How does the GOP prevent defections? [...]
By now, you know the story of the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report that came out this week. It was commissioned by the health insurance industry to show how private rates might rise under health reform. It used narrow, worst-case scenario assumptions, and ignored other parts of the reform effort that would lower costs. It was widely condemned [...]
From the Associated Press. I double checked the date: October 16, 2009: NEW ORLEANS – A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it [...]
This thing is so earnest. It’s like its own Saturday Night Live parody. Hard to know whether to laugh or just feel so good about the world that you start craving an apple.
