Politics

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 02:05pm

COBURN/VITTER PLAN GOES AWRY.... Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.) no doubt thought they were being clever. They crafted an amendment that would force members of Congress to get their coverage through a public insurance plan, if the...

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:54pm

File under Super-Fauna Drama: Tai Shan, aka "Butterstick," for those who do not live in the Washington D.C. area, is a cute panda bear. Really cute. (See pictures here.) Born about four years ago at the National Zoo, he is the property of the People's Republic of China. And  Panda diplomacy, it seems, has its limits. [...]

Tags: Uncategorized, super-fauna drama

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:46pm

Some interesting new polling from CNN just landed in the old inbox, and it makes it pretty clear that, from the public’s perspective at least, Afghanistan is now Obama’s War. First, the topline: CNN finds that Obama’s approval rating has slipped below 50% for the first time. It’s now at 48%, versus 50% who disapprove. The poll was taken on December 2 and 3 [...]

Tags: President Obama, polling, Afghanistan, Bush administration

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:44pm

Courtesy of Google StreetView, here’s 1242 H Street NE in the District of Columbia: The owners of this vacant lot in this economically depressed retail corridor currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance would like to build a building here. You’d think people would welcome such a move since, you know, a vacant lot is not very helpful to anyone. But the owners want to build&md[...]

Tags: uncat, DC, planning

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:36pm

From the network that brought you the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake “wardrobe malfunction” in the middle of a B&D Super Bowl dance number comes a web promo for the children’s holiday classic Frosty the Snowman. [...] Read the rest »

Tags: The Blog

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:35pm

SOUND JUDGMENT STILL EXISTS.... It can be frustrating to read media reports on the Obama White House, which often give the impression that the administration's economic priorities are out of whack. A Washington Post report yesterday, for example, suggested the...

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:31pm

In an interview with Charlie Rose, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) admitted for the first time that he wanted to be Secretary of State for President Obama. Said Kerry: "I think you would be a liar if you sat here and played a game and said gee, Charlie, no. I think it is a great position. But I didn't sit around and worry about it."

Tags: White House

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:27pm

The draw for the 2010 World Cup has just been completed. It populated the eight groups of four teams that will compete to make the quarterfinals. Two teams from each of the eight groups will make it to that round. The two teams I will be rooting for -- the U.S. and England -- ended up in the same Group. Moreover, both caught what looks like a big break when the other two teams for their Group [...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:15pm

Once again, we’ll have to cancel today’s show, as the First Mate remains in the hospital and I’m mainly blogging from the room. [...] Read the rest »

Tags: Top Picks

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:58pm

I thought I’d look into some of Ben Bernanke’s writing from back when he was heading up George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. For example, the 2006 Economic Report of the President which assures us that “Financial services facilitate innovation and thus encourage economic growth. They might also bolster economic stability.” Sweet, sweet st[...]

Tags: uncat, Housing, Ben Bernanke

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:55pm

The House Ethics Committee will probe the actions of Rep. [...] Read the rest »

Tags: The Blog

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:49pm

I just watched an interesting public option colloquy of sorts between Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) on the one hand and, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and a newly in-the-mix Susan Collins (R-ME) on the other. It was the first time I've seen a senator call out his colleagues, however politely, on their misrepresentations of the public option. The trio spoke at an event in support of a cost containm[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:46pm

Call it robo-rapid-response. The labor-backed Americans United for Change is pumping half a million robocalls into the homes of seniors in four states, rebutting an earlier robocall launched by Senator John McCain telling seniors that the health care bill would cut their Medicare benefits. McCain’s robocall, which was sponsored by the NRSC and targeted seniors in Colorado, Arkansas, an[...]

Tags: Senate Republicans, health care, Senate Dems, big liberal groups

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:43pm

I don’t think any video is available yet, but once Obama’s Allentown event got into the Q&A section it got really good. What was interesting about it was that everything Obama said was so banal. It was elementary, back-to-basics, “I’m a Democrat” kind of stuff. He talked about how he was trying to expand access to health care, but Republic[...]

Tags: uncat

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:35pm

BLAMING THE FUTURE FOR THE PAST.... Every month, we get a new report on unemployment, and every month the various political players put their own spin on what they'd like the public to believe. When it comes to Republicans, the...

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:31pm

Yesterday, the Senate defeated an amendment proposed by John McCain that would have stripped the Democrats' health care legislation of cuts to Medicare (more than $400 billion of them). Sen. McCain's amendment was defeated by a vote of 58-42. Ben Nelson and Jim Webb were the only Democrats who voted to prevent the cuts to Medicare. This leaves a large number of Democrats who will [...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:28pm

Jon Ralston gets an advance look at the forthcoming Mason-Dixon poll in Nevada which shows Brian Sandoval (R) leading the race for governor over Rory Reid (D), 49% to 35%. If Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman runs as an independent, it is Goodman 35%, Sandoval 32%; and Reid 24%. In a GOP primary, Sandoval crushes Gov. Jim Gibbons, 39% to 18%.

Tags: 2010 Campaign, NV-Gov

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:25pm

Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said after a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden that his country, a member of NATO, is sending 200 more troops to Afghanistan. It's an increase of 60 percent that Biden deemed "significant" due to the country's relatively small population he estimated is about 10 million. Bajnai said Hungary "made clear we agree with the strategy[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:25pm

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Tags: czars, education

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:15pm

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Tags: The Blog

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:14pm

This interesting Ed Kilgore post about the public option reminded me that I really wish people would be more careful about distinguishing between the terms “health care” and “health insurance.” It’s like the difference between the auto mechanic who fixes your car if it gets damaged, and the car insurance that gives you money to hire a mechanic if y[...]

Tags: uncat, health care

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:58am

The NRCC has been quick to attack Tennessee state Sen. Roy Herron, who has emerged as the Democratic candidate for the seating of retiring Blue Dog Rep. John Tanner -- and along the way, they seem to be using some rather interesting rhetoric. Herron is a former minister and an attorney, and he has taught at both the divinity and law schools at Vanderbilt, his alma mater. He has been married for 2[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:50am

Up in New Hampshire, Republican Senate Kelly Ayotte catches likely Democrat rival Paul Hodes offering statistics about the stimulus creating jobs in the state that are... well, in all likelihood, made up, as Hodes offers no citations for these 16,000 jobs, gives no explanation as to how he came up with them, and yanked the numbers from his web site once questions were raised.

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:31am

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) said yesterday that he'd filibuster Senate health care legislation if it does not ultimately contain restrictive, Stupak-like abortion language. That's touched of fairly frantic negotiations, and Nelson has postponed filing his amendment. But for another pro-life Democrat, the issue isn't so black and white. "I already voted back in July, where we had a[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:28am

Anders Fogh Rasmussen Via Spencer Ackerman, I see that our favorite Danish hawk, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has a Washington Post op-ed talking about the extra contribution in Afghanistan that non-U.S. NATO members are going to make and aligning his talking points about strategy with the Obama administration’s. One consequence of that is that his discussion features th[...]

Tags: uncat, Afghanistan, National Security

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:26am

Before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the non-farm payroll report for November this morning, you didn't have to look hard to find headlines like "Jobs Report Has Market On Edge." In part this was due to a not very encouraging private sector labor report released on Wednesday, but the anxiety also had its roots in a mysterious comment made by White House Press Secretary Robe[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:25am

ECONOMIC MIGHT.... This little tidbit from the new Pew Research Center survey stood out for me. While isolationism and unilateralism reached four-decade highs among the public, the stature of China increased. Among Americans polled, 44 percent said China was the...

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:09am

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said he will think about running for president again in 2012, the BBC reports.Putin "stood down after two consecutive terms as president in 2008, but the term in office has since been extended to six years, making him eligible to stand again."According to the AP, when asked if he was planning to leave politics, Putin responded, "Don't h[...]

Tags: Foreign Elections

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 10:46am

The White House is pleased with a new Congressional Research Service report showing that since taking office in January, President Obama has made "historic" change to how lobbyists interact with the executive branch. Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, blogged today at WhiteHouse.gov a long item boasting about the report's findings. &quot[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 10:35am

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said it is "unlikely" the outstanding issues between the U.S. and Russia will be resolved in the next 24 hours so the two world powers will instead issue a joint statement agreeing to continue the expiring nuclear arms START treaty until the new agreement is inked. Gibbs said President Obama spoke with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and they a[...]