We are in a new age, though no one knows yet just how long it will last or what it all means. Republicans and Democrats sat together during the State of the Union. Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell worked together on a major tax bill. Keith Olbermann is gone from MSNBC. Michele Bachmann has been [...]
On Obama’s coattails. That’s the gist of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s first round of activity for the 2012 election cycle announced Monday. Radio ads, calls and e-mails are slated to target 19 districts, 17 of which Obama won in 2008 with an average of around 55 percent of the vote. Those 17 are mostly [...]
In a big blow to the Obama Administration, a second federal judge has declared that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional. The mandate is a central provision of the health reform law that will, beginning in 2014, require nearly every American to maintain health insurance coverage. Florida Judge Roger Vinson, appointed by Ronald [...]
The stakes in Egypt are obviously huge right now. But it feels like we’re all paying too little attention to the situation in Yemen, which Obama counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan has been described as fearing could become another Waziristan-like haven for terrorists, and where political anarchy almost certainly plays into al Qaeda’s hands. The WSJ [...]
The news that Hillary Clinton has called all our ambassadors back to Washington for a mass meeting at the State Department is further evidence–in part, at least–of the damage that Wikileaks has done to U.S. diplomacy. I know that there have been “official” reports about the damage not being severe, but that’s not what I’ve [...]
Another installment in our continuing look at the impact unemployment will play in key 2012 election states. Today’s Columbus Dispatch writes in some detail about Ohio’s economic trajectory. Here’s the good news for Barack Obama: Ohio’s unemployment rate declined for the last nine months of 2010 to 9.6 percent in December, from a high of [...]
If the liberation of Egypt weren’t in progress, this story from Afghanistan would be huge front-page news. The losses at Kabul Bank, first reported to be several hundred million in the Times last summer, are actually in the neighborhood of $900 million. Apparently, the bank directors–perhaps including Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud–took a substantial portion of [...]
A new dawn broke in Tunis with the ouster of its long-time corrupt dictator. After years of repression, news organizations suddenly were allowed to criticize the government. Committees were formed in parliament to create laws allowing independent political parties and to make democratic changes to the constitution. The hated State Security Court was disbanded in [...]
When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, there was widespread talk about how the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the hoped-for birth of democracy would provide an inspiration to an Arab world largely stultified by authoritarian dictatorship. The great wave of reform, of course, never materialized. Until now. But there is, of course, precious [...]
