1. Pepsi may be all about Hope and Optimismmmm, but at the Obama White House Diet Coke is the drink of choice.
2. Senate leader Harry Reid is threatening to seat Al Franken in April, regardless of legal appeals.
3. The Associated Press finds a skeleton in almost-Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg’s real estate holdings. He “steered …
In the ArenaUncategorized
At the heart of the progressive movement, one hundred years ago, was the notion of taxation on a sliding scale, according to income–the belief that the more wealthy you are, the more you should pay as a percentage of your income. The progressive income tax was launched, via constitutional amendment, by Woodrow Wilson in 1913. It remains …
And today’s big story. Did you wake up feeling like a titan of Wall Street? You are about to become the biggest shareholder in one of the country’s premier financial institutions. The NYT is reporting that the Treasury Department has reached a deal in which the federal government will take a stake of between 30% and 40% in
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The Associated Press reports that as of Wednesday, at least 4,251 members of the U.S. Military have died in the Iraq War. At least 584 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. In the coming weeks, for the first time since 1991, the families of any future war dead will have the option of having …
In the ArenaUncategorized
I’m sitting here, doing my expenses–ugh!–and listening to Mary Matalin on CNN churn out talking points borrowed from the Museum of Reaganism. Some of it is just laughable. Obama is trying to do too much in a recession, she says. We just can’t afford it. “I’d like to have three houses but I can’t afford it.” Oh really? One of the things …
There was some action today on two causes that we’ve been hearing about for a while–one that had been called for by the left and the other by the right. On the first, Defense Secretary Gates announced an end to the ban on media coverage of military coffins returning to U.S. soil, a restriction that has been in place since 1991 and …
Here‘s a story out today (I know you’re excited, two in one day!) about the state of health care reform legislation. While everyone agrees that the loss of Tom Daschle was a set back, most folks that I’ve spoken with this week feel Obama’s doubling down in the budget and in his address to the joint session of Congress has overcome any …
The incomparable Jonathan Allen of CQ finds Barack Obama’s name on one of the earmarks in the spending bill that just passed the House, which is essentially a leftover bill from last year to fund the current fiscal year.
President Obama, who took a no-earmark pledge on the campaign trail, is listed as one of dozens of cosponsors of a
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In the ArenaUncategorized
John McCain and Henry Kissinger have weighed in on Afghanistan in the past 48 hours–and both have a good grasp of the problems we’re facing there, but their solutions diverge, at least in emphasis, and these nuanced disagreements illuminate the mind-boggling difficulties we’re facing in the Af/Pak region.
McCain’s speech at the …
Here’s a web story from Scherer and me on the furor over the earmarks in the 2009 omnibus bill passed by the House yesterday. Roll Call’s Keith Koffler also reports today that Obama tried, and failed, to convince Congress to trim some of the earmarks. An excerpt for those of you who don’t have Roll Call subscriptions:
According to a
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In the ArenaUncategorized
On the budget speech.
In the ArenaUncategorized
Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan, two wise conservatives, have some interesting things to say about the Obama speech. Less interesting conservatives of the knee-jerk variety, like Pete Wehner and Bill Kristol, are complaining that the President didn’t have enough to say about foreign policy last night. Uh-huh. It was a budget speech. …
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