“Obviously, we’re all oil industry. We’re all from the same part of the country. Almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these platforms. They grew up in the same towns. Some of these people, they’ve been friends with all their life. They’ve been with these people since they were kinds. [...]
Jon Chait catches Bill Kristol distorting Nancy Pelosi on the economic possibilities unleashed by the achievement of universal health care. For years, economists and policy-makers have said that if individuals with entrepreneurial ideas didn’t have to worry about health insurance, they’d be able to leave their corporate jobs and take a chance on starting a [...]
You have to deal with lots of hokey morning television correspondent astoundment and such, but it’s worth it. Start watching at about 1:30. H/T Andrew Sullivan
–Codename Avocado: Marc Ambinder lays out what he calls President Obama’s “massive expansion of clandestine military and intelligence operations worldwide, sanctioning activities in more than a dozen countries and giving the military’s combatant commanders significant new authority to conduct unconventional warfare.” Among other things, he reports that the program, once codenamed Avocado, allows the U.S. [...]
A Pentagon working group is now studying the issue of repealing the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy that has banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military since 1993. The final report is due December 1, but Democrats in Congress do not want to wait that long to take action undoing the policy. [...]
Back in February I wrote about how the Republicans weren’t likely to take back the Senate this cycle. In order to really come within striking distance of the Democrats’ 10-seat advantage, I wrote, they’ve have to not only hold all their own seats and take Delaware, North Dakota, Nevada, Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Indiana but [...]
One of the most remarkable qualities about General Stanley McChrystal is his remarkable candor…and now he has called the benighted campaign to secure Marjah what it is: “a bleeding ulcer.” The question is, why on earth did McChrystal decide to go in there in the first place? When he first arrived, the general questioned the [...]
Sure, all the talk this weekend was about the murder-suicide between Democrats Ed Case and Colleen Hanabusa in Hawaii that handed Republican State Assemblyman Charles Djou a victory in a special election for Hawaii’s First Congressional District – President Obama’s childhood home. But Dems are betting that base anger on the other side – where [...]
