From former Obama budget director Peter Orszag: Social Security is not the key fiscal problem facing the nation. Payments to its beneficiaries amount to 5 percent of the economy now; by 2050, they’re projected to rise to about 6 percent. Over the same period, federal health care costs will increase six times as much. Orszag [...]
Some of the TIME crew traveled down to the Capitol this morning for a Tea Party rally headlined by Sen. Jim DeMint. He and other speakers extended promises to continue “the fight” — the fight to repeal “Obamacare,” the fight against the “liberal agenda,” the fight against earmarks, and plenty more where that came from. [...]
So says Salon: Gingrich has now been repeating the exact same formulation about his plans for about a year and a half. And every time he does it, the media reports it as if it’s new. That’s despite the fact that, by our non-comprehensive count, Gingrich has repeated in 20 separate interviews that he will [...]
The Afghan president calls for a smaller American troop presence and reduced military operations in his country. And Michael Cohen, a sharp liberal critic of the war, is extremely frustrated: It’s hard to imagine a greater indictment of US strategy than to have the president of Afghanistan basically argue that that strategy is counter-productive and [...]
Listening to the 911 call of Brent McFarland, as he waits for an ambulance to come to the aid of his choking fiancee, is awful. He screams helplessly, tries to perform CPR, and begs her not to leave him for an excruciatingly slow 12 minutes. But what is arguably just as painful to witness is [...]
Bill Galston, who’s been on something of an analytical tear lately, points out that both Democrats and Independents want to see Obama and the Congressional Republicans work together–by large margins. Only Republicans seem to want gridlock. This is pretty much where the Republicans were after their knockout victory of 1994. By early 1996, after a [...]
If true, the defection of Col. Shcherbakov would be a very unusual human intelligence coup for the U.S. against Russia. Traditionally the Russians better Americans on humint, while the U.S. has the upper hand on signals and other technical intelligence. That match-up didn’t always work in Washington’s favor, as when Robert Hanssen tipped the Russians [...]
UPDATED BELOW. It is not unusual for political spouses to disagree with their husbands. (Laura Bush, famously, was in favor of gay marriage and pro-choice.) It is, however, unusual for a political spouse to shoot a public service announcement that seems to publicly call out her spouse on the eve of a vote about Don’t [...]
