Silvio Berlusconi on the 17,000 Italians left homeless by the Abruzzo earthquake:
They should see it like a weekend of camping.
George W. Bush is just kicking himself for not using that little gem in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
As expected, yesterday Democrat Mike Quigley handily won the Chicago congressional seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel. But more than a week after the special election to replace new Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the House, no winner has been determined because the votes for Democrat Scott Murphy and Republican James Tedisco are virtually tied. …
The White House Easter egg roll is getting all of the attention–especially after it was announced yesterday that tickets are being set aside for gay and lesbian families. But on Thursday, the First Family will also host a Passover seder for friends and staff. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but although presidents have …
If you read one thing today…alright, you’re probably already reading Mark Danner on the Red Cross Torture Report. But after that, you really must read our colleague Mark Thompson’s piece on Army recruiter suicides in our latest issue. It’s a devastating story with terrific reporting and is very much worth your time.
Apparently there was a shocking development on last night’s episode of House. (Like much of the country, I was busy watching Michigan State get stomped by UNC.) The upshot is that actor Kal Penn–of House and, of course, the Harold and Kumar movies–is leaving the television show. But the departure isn’t so Penn can focus on his film …
Two months after announcing the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the White House released the full list of council members just a few hours before they meet for the first time this evening. The full list is below the jump, but just a few initial observations:
* Only two of the 25 council members come from …
The headline from Obama’s address to the Turkish Parliament is already clear. “The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam,” declared the president to much applause.
But perhaps more noteworthy is how open and personal he has become in his outreach to global Muslims. For the second time on this trip, the president …
For all of the outcry from anti-abortion activists about Kathleen Sebelius’ insufficient support for abortion restrictions and the opposition that was supposed to endanger her nomination to head up HHS, the abortion issue was virtually absent from her Senate confirmation hearings. Tom Coburn asked her about the possibility that RU-486 …
In his press conference following the second day of the G-20 summit today, Obama told a Chinese journalist he wasn’t very good at coming up with catchphrases to describe his approach to foreign affairs. But if you were listening for some sign that the Obama era is going to involve a new orientation on the global stage, you couldn’t do …
Word leaked out today that Obama has chosen Robert Groves to be the new census director, setting off the next political skirmish over how the 2010 census should be conducted. Groves is currently a professor of statistics at the University of Michigan, and Mark Blumenthal describes him as “arguably the leading authority on the subject of …
We most often hear about public opinion polls that make Americans seem like blithering idiots who are lucky to get through the day without tripping over their own stupidity: More people can name a Jonas Brother than a Supreme Court Justice! A shocking percentage don’t know which party controls Congress! They believe in UFOs!
So it’s …
Via the New York Times, a reminder that many Detroiters won’t be able to read about the collapse of their local industry:
Maybe once a year, a city has a news day as heavy as the one that just hit Detroit: The White House forced out the chairman of General Motors, word leaked that the administration wanted Chrysler to hitch its fortunes
…
The detainment of two American journalists by the North Koreans has officially become a full-fledged problem. Meanwhile, North Korea is scheduled to test-launch a long-range ballistic missile next week. Good thing we have a part-time North Korea envoy devoting every other Friday to the situation.
