I’ve been reading a lot about the Pentagon’s possible budget hit, with analysis all over the map. What this proves conclusively is that no one knows what will happen. That’s the real rub in Obama’s debt ceiling debacle. No one can possibly know the specifics in outlying years. There are too many unknown unknowables, to [...]
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Biden on Point, while Republicans Balk at ‘Professor Obama’s lectures’
It always comes down to relationships and Pres. Obama just doesn’t have them. Joe does. An interesting back story put together by Politico’s Glenn Thrush, Carrie Budoff Brown, Manu Raju and John Breshnahan. [...] With the talks going nowhere Saturday morning, the White House made “our last play,” according to a senior administration official, calling [...]
‘In the News’, Politics and Beyond
“In the News” is now its own blog, since our upgrade. You can tweet or FB any post there, too. Anyone can post or cross-post from his or her blog. It’s getting quite a lot of reader traffic. Give it a try! Post a news blurb about anything, including items non-political. I was pretty surprised [...]
TPaw Flatlines, While Everyone Waits for Perry
**UPDATED** Frankly, I wouldn’t even be writing this piece if it wasn’t for Tim Pawlenty falling off the grid, because early polls aren’t very illustrative. It’s just that even after “Meet the Press,” debates and pimping the press, he still can’t get any respect. I don’t know how it gets any worse for TPaw, someone [...]
Obama’s ‘Deal of the Century’ for Republicans
If you want one reason why Barack Obama doesn’t deserve reelection this is it. If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue [...]
Senators Merkeley & Udall: ‘Let’s Not Linger in Afghanistan’
As a liberal who supported Pres. Obama’s Afghanistan plan when he first began it, I simply do not understand how anyone can support it today, at least not when judging what’s in U.S. interests. From their New York Times op-ed today: Nineteen months ago the president announced the surge strategy in hopes of stabilizing Afghanistan [...]
Joe Biden Won the Afghanistan Debate
It’s all about Pakistan now. Pres. Obama felt compelled to tell the whole history of why we’re in Afghanistan in a bloated, if shorter than usual address to the nation, but this is where he should have started: By the time I took office, the war in Afghanistan had entered its seventh year. But al [...]
LA Times Report: 10,000 Force Drawdown in Afghanistan this Year
**UPDATED** President Obama plans to announce a troop reduction in Afghanistan that Pentagon and other administration officials say is expected to bring home about 10,000 personnel by the end of the year. – Obama expected to announce major Afghan drawdown Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Zbigniew Brzezinski has [...]
New York Times: Pakistan Arrests CIA Bin Laden Informants
With friends like these… Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials. Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army [...]
Panetta in Pakistan
Coming after his confirmation hearings for SecDef, Leon Panetta arrives in Pakistan: CIA director Leon Panetta arrived here Friday on an unannounced visit that marked his first trip to Pakistan since al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a Navy SEAL raid more than a month ago, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. Panetta’s visit [...]
Pak-US on the Rocks
‘Intelligence fusion’ cells, some that help us in Afghanistan, have been ordered shut down by Pakistan, with a demand that U.S. reduce troops in that country as well. From the LA Times: In a clear sign of Pakistan’s deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of [...]
Atta Prez
Pres. Obama may have been delivering great one-liners at the Gridiron dinner last night. But earlier in the day he did something for women, for us all. Extending the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is important, with Mr. Obama’s statement in his radio address yesterday once again urging Congress to make women able to [...]
Arafat’s Ghost
From Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch on “Turtle Bay”: The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the [...]
On the Tepid Side of History Until John Kerry Wrote…
**UPDATES BELOW** … President Hosni Mubarak must accept that the stability of his country hinges on his willingness to step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure. One of the toughest jobs that a leader under siege can perform is to engineer a peaceful transition. But Egyptians have made clear they will [...]
Heal This
Speaker John Boehner will host a cocktail party for the Republican National Committee at the same time that President Barack Obama will be addressing the nation at the memorial service for victims of the Tucson shooting. – Roll Call I honestly don’t know what to say, when in a moment of national mourning the Speaker [...]
TM Must Reads
IN AN amazing interview with the Guardian on Sunday titled, appropriately, “Michael Douglas on Liberace, Cannes, cancer and cunnilingus,” the movie star does the biggest public service message for HPV and sexually transmitted diseases that’s been done in a generation. The Internet exploded with shock at what was taken as a revelation. It’s like thinking giving head to a man infected with HIV won’t leave its mark, too, though that’s more commonly talked about.
But your individual circumstances and mine should not hide the fact that there is an ideal and optimal family arrangement whether we in our own lives can meet it. – Erick Erickson, in “The Truth May Hurt, But Is Not Mean” AFTER BEING blasted for his patriarchal grunt, Erick Erickson now gets very defensive. How can you tell?
Ms Garraway, 46, is fronting a campaign to encourage young women to think about fertility and giving birth much younger than “her generation”. As part of the campaign, Ms Garraway spent a day being transformed into a heavily pregnant 70 year-old by Adrian Rigby, a prosthetic make-up artist, to “shock and provoke debate about how old is too old to have a baby”. [UK Telegraph] LOOKING at relationships, I find it telling that casual writers on the subject give marriage advice that hinges on bringing back the feminine mystique years and suggesting marrying younger would solve the problems that only better and smarter choices can conquer.
“Having mom as primary bread winner is bad for kids and bad for marriage.” – Erick Erickson IT HAS become a conservative chant lately, the latest from Erick Erickson. “War on men” from Suzanne Venker, Megan McArdle saying women should marry younger, they’re all attempting to resurrect Freud’s biology is destiny.
THE 21st century world offers ways to tweak your appearance, or alter it altogether, with women finally able to combat directly the comparison that’s always been around. Men look distinguished as they age, while women look old, unattractive, or to use Rush Limbaugh’s favorite comment, who wants to look at a woman with wrinkles? The 2012 plastic surgery statistics are out and the American Society of Plastic Surgery tells the story.
The real question about Hillary is this: When people take a new look at her in the coming years, will they see the past or the future — Mrs. Clinton or Madam President? – Maureen Dowd IT’S A classic front page from Huffington Post, coupled with a post by Jason Linkins, which details what’s been going on.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy “Here’s what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate. Yes, I went there.
“Norma Rae is a survivor and for the first time in her life she’s got a chance to become something more… a winner.” – Promo for “Norma Rae” CRITICS like Anne-Marie Slaughter, but especially Maureen I-Love-My-Pearls Dowd, and others [most of whom didn't read the book or do their homework] who are blaming Sheryl Sandberg for being a billionaire Ivy League graduate, while accusing her of letting corporations and government off the hook, are missing a major point.
Great sex doesn’t always just happen. Sometimes, it takes a little planning, especially if — like many Americans — you’ve been in a bit of a sex rut. Do some prep work by turning your bedroom into a love nest: Make the bed (with new, or at least clean, sheets), tidy up, light a candle or two, and queue up a sexy playlist on your iPod.
“You Don’t Own Me” PSA -Official from You Don't Own Me on Vimeo. WHO DOESN’T know the song “You Don’t Own Me,” sung by Leslie Gore? The movie First Wives Club helped to reignite the relevancy of the song.
“Last night I interviewed Jill Stein the presidential candidate for the Green Party on this show. And I confess right now, I should have asked her to just get out of the race.” – Jennifer Granholm, “The War Room” [Current TV] THE ARGUMENT Jennifer Granholm makes above is a tactic that no longer fits the times.
“With that drum magazine, he could have gotten off 50, 60 rounds, even if it was semiautomatic, within one minute,” Chief Oates said. [New York Times] IN THE GAPING MAW of our leadership vacuum stands Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates, whose resolve, vulnerability and humility inside the vortex of a man made hell revealed what nobody in Congress or either political party has shown in decades. Leadership without regard to anything but his own duty to the people, which included the cops in the eye of volcanic carnage.
*updated below* So much for keep calm and carry on, what Joe Scarborough proclaims to be his motto. It was the weirdest one-on-one back and forth with a high profile talking head imaginable. It makes high school look mature.
**UPDATED** Would we be any worse off with Stephen Colbert as president? I doubt it. Politifact has watched the video “(repeatedly!
Despite rising public concern about the federal budget deficit, Americans favor keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are rather than taking steps to reduce the budget deficit (by 60% vs. 32%). – Public Wants Changes in Entitlements, Not Changes in Benefits This is starting early, so it’s time to revisit the facts.
“If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off.” – Sect. Hillary Clinton Women can do it, too.
The interview with Obama by George Stephanopoulos wasn’t nearly as contentious as the interview with the Edwardses. No Republican talking points from Stephanopoulos yesterday, like when he accused Edwards of abandoning the troops with this beauty: “Do you think the Democrats should be saddled with the idea of completely cutting off funding for the troops?” Or this one: “You know, a lot of Democrats still in the Senate think that your position here is cynical political theater.
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