Cairo
A few days ago, I vented on the pathetic nature of the Republican Party’s presidential field for 2012, as seen from overseas. And now, again reading the US newspapers from abroad, I’m amazed by the greed-soaked myopia of the “enlightened” business community, in the persons of two of Barack Obama’s favorite business guys, Jamie …
“This is not something we can sweep under the rug and say, you know, we’ve done the best we can. This is not that kind of problem.”
Those were the words of Missouri Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill, speaking on the Senate floor Thursday. She was referring to revelations in my recent TIME article about the mushrooming burial …
From the files of “Things That Would Be Different With More Women in Politics”:
Republican members of the Florida House of Representatives chastised a Democratic colleague today for uttering the word ‘uterus’ on the House floor during debate. Not that it should matter, but the context was a titillating discussion about deregulation. …
That’s what would happen if Congress pares back appropriations for USAID, says Rajiv Shah:
“We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying,” USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah testified before the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee.
“Of that 70,000,
…
In the words of a prominent Israeli:
The Obama Doctrine: He only goes if the entire world, including the Arab League, wants him to go.
The Bush Doctrine: He only goes if the entire world, except the British, doesn’t want him to go.
Tahrir Square comes to Palestine.
Hebron
The biggest question in the Middle East peace non-process right now is whether Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, is more interested in making peace with the Israelis or reconciling with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza. The Israelis say it must be one or the other.
For the past several years, …
Reuters Mark Hosenball reported Wednesday that President Obama has authorized secret CIA support for Libyan rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi. The New York Times went further, saying “The Central Intelligence Agency has inserted clandestine operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and make contacts with rebels …
With Steven Gray
For the supposed bane of Wall Street, an ex-professor whose critics like to cast as an overzealous regulator champing at the bit of Big Government, Elizabeth Warren is actually quite fluent in the language of Big Business. “Rules should be focused, and those that are not useful should be revised or eliminated,” she …
A House subcommittee is set to investigate revelations in my recent TIME article about how widespread the burial fiasco is at Arlington National Cemetery.
“This will not stand,” subcommittee Chairman Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said about the new facts in the piece that revealed workers regularly come across unidentified remains in …
TIME’s Bryan Walsh parses the President’s speech today at Georgetown:
..it’s a mark of how stagnant our energy policy has gotten that Obama was able to offer little more than he had a year ago. In fact, he could offer less. Last year there was at least a chance that the country could have both increased drilling, and a long-term carbon
…
TIME’s Jim Frederick, who wrote a book about the desperate brutality of one ground-down platoon of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, reads into the emerging case of Spc. Jeremy Morlock and the group of young men from the 5th Stryker Brigade who allegedly hunted down and murdered Afghan civilians. Why it’s different this time:
The extent and length
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I caught up with Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann on the Hill this morning, and we chatted about her potential presidential bid as she power-walked — at unforgiving speeds — through the halls of the Cannon office building. The gist: Officially, she hasn’t made a decision, but she will be making one in the next few months, and she seems …
