His exploratory page is here. Nate Silver doesn’t think much of his chances; George Will is obliquely blistering: “Let us not mince words. There are at most five plausible Republican presidents on the horizon — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former Utah Gov. and departing ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Massachusetts [...]
President Obama listens as Mexican President Felipe Calderon addresses the media during a joint news conference at the White House on March 3. (REUTERS/Jason Reed) –The White House’s initial budget negotiation offering is $6.5 billion in cuts over the remainder of the fiscal year, slashing some construction and maintenance contracts as well as FEMA grants. [...]
The Obama administration has spoken with two voices on Libya. On the one hand Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said that “nothing is off the table so long as the Libyan Government continues to threaten and kill Libyans.” That talk has been amplified by calls from the Senate Foreign Relations chairman John Kerry [...]
In politics and media, there is a basic (and quite cynical) maxim that says you should only pick fights with people bigger than you. A guppy who might ordinarily struggle to earn headlines can garner attention by attaching his name to a shark. That’s basically what Tea Party Nation’s Judson Phillips did by writing a [...]
Roger Vinson, the federal judge in Florida who said in January that the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, today issued a “clarification” of his earlier ruling. (The Obama Administration had asked the judge to specify what he meant in his original decision – that the law could continue while the issue makes its way [...]
I think that’s the gist of this new survey from Pew, which finds that anger toward Washington has subsided considerably among Republicans since last September. The reason doesn’t appear to be so much that desirable policies have been enacted, but rather that voters opposed to ideological compromise are getting the stalemates they asked for (click [...]
The assassination of Pakistan’s Minorities Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, coming hard on the heels of the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, should set alarm bells ringing throughout the U.S. Government. Both men were moderates, who wanted to amend Pakistan’s absurd blasphemy law Whoever, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of any person, [...]
The Republicans are gutting the Wall Street reform bill. This is a pretty complicated topic and there are two additional points I’d like to make: –The idea that funding for regulatory agencies is a budget issue is essentially phony: the agencies are not funded through the federal budget, but by the federal reserve bank from [...]
–Alex feels out the House Republican freshmen class through two engaging profiles and, I think, gets at the crux of their importance in the ongoing budget battle here: When Republican House leaders presented a budget plan that would have cut $32 billion in seven months — a deep whack, but less than the GOP had [...]
Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images
