Mitt Romney is a competent politician and competent politicians usually know how to duck questions about topics they don’t want to talk about. They respond briefly and vaguely and then turn to something slightly related, but far less politically toxic. This is the pivot and it’s a skill every politician must have down pat. So [...]
My new story from the dead-tree/iPad version of TIME is about Sen. Ted Kaufman, the former aide to Vice President Joe Biden, who is challenging Democrats and the White House to embrace far tougher financial regulatory reforms. You can read it here.
Washington was rattled last week by reports that Kalpen Moki, the actor known as Kal Penn, would be leaving his job at the White House Office of Public Engagement for a return to the big screen, this time in a Harold and Kumar Christmas movie. Why all the concern? In some quarters, it is suspected [...]
Our White House Photo Blog features this photo of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan testifying before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. As luck would have it, this also happened to be the moment when the power went out at the Rayburn House Office Building: Over at the Curious Capitalist, our colleague Stephen Gandel has this [...]
Yesterday, I traveled out to Staten Island to catch up with Rep. Michael McMahon, a freshman Democrat who voted against health care reform. McMahon seems pretty happy with how his vote is being perceived at home, even though Moveon.org and the SEIU are now actively searching for a Dem to primary him. He’s raised more [...]
The National Security Council says yes, based on a classified review of the evidence against U.S. born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is suspected to be residing somewhere in Yemen and working with Al-Qaeda. But as Spencer Ackerman points out, this decision seems to set up a rather daunting legal precedent. The administration may very well [...]
UPDATED. See additions after the jump. Having grown up in the Commonwealth, I’m no stranger to the tensions that inevitably lie at the intersection of Southern history and Southern politics. Back in the 1980s and ’90s, Virginia had a very awkward thing called Lee-Jackson-King Day. Believe it or not, the government decided it would be [...]
In his new book, 13 Bankers, economist Simon Johnson traces a major shift in Democratic policy thought to the moment, in 1995, when President Bill Clinton decided to embrace Robert Rubin as Treasury Secretary. After its resounding defeat in the 1994 Congressional elections, many insiders felt that the Democratic Party needed to turn to the [...]
This could be less totally amazing, but only if this kid was a girl and had a different hair cut. (For those who are time-crunched, start the video at 1:10.) H/T The Awl
