Republicans Win Big in Local Races
The loss of a Republican seat in NY-23 under highly unusual circumstances notwithstanding, yesterday was a good day for Republicans. After crushing defeats in successive elections, they won back the Virginia governor's office in a blowout and knocked off a billionaire incumbent governor in New Jersey despite having their vote split between two candidates. I would, however, resist the temptation ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 4, 2009 08:43
Obama Spoils System Champ
A USA Today report that "Nearly a year after he was elected on a pledge to change business-as-usual in Washington, Obama also has taken a cue from his predecessors and appointed fundraisers to coveted ambassadorships" and in fact has done so at "a rate higher than any president in more than four decades" combined with story in The Hill that ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 08:52
Recession Over, Obama Takes Credit
As widely expected, the Powers That Be have declared the recession over, while cautioning that the economy still has a long way to go. And, of course, the Obama administration is crediting its stimulus packages for the good news. It might not feel like it to most voters, but the U.S. economy is growing again after a more than a year ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 29, 2009 13:01
Obama Ties Bush on Golf
Interesting-if-true fact from Patrick Gavin: President Obama has already played as many rounds of golf after nine months in office as President George W. Bush did in eight years. President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years. CBS' Mark Knoller — ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 26, 2009 14:54
Is Barack Obama Too Manly?
Mark Liebowitz had a piece for NYT over the weekend titled "Man’s World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say." At first blush, it reads like some feminists are genuinely concerned about a male-dominated culture in the West Wing. After awhile, however, one begins to suspect it's a PR exercise to make President Obama seem more ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 26, 2009 07:54
Obama Leads 2012 Opponents
Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters. (I hasten to add, it wasn't.) In fact, according to the survey, "Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 22, 2009 11:58
Obama’s Federalist Approach to Medical Marijuana
In new guidelines announced today, the Obama Administration has decided that it will deferring to the states on enforcing marijuana laws when those states have laws allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 19, 2009 13:36
Limbaugh, Obama, and the NFL
Joseph Ashby argues that something fishy is being ignored in the matter of Rush Limbaugh's failed bid to buy the Rams. NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team. [...] Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 16, 2009 12:57
Advice from the Saudis on Afghanistan
In this morning's Washington Post Prince Turki al-Faisal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, former director general of their intelligence service and also their former ambassador to the United States offers President Obama some advice on how to proceed in Afghanistan with which I find I am in almost complete agreement. His advice consists of six action items: There is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 9, 2009 11:34
Niche Markets and the Internet
One of the coolest things about the internet, in my opinion, is the way that it opens up markets for goods that might not be economically viable locally, but are economically viable when every business in the world has a global reach. This has opened us up to a vast array of goods and services that simply weren't economically ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 9, 2009 10:12
Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Like practically everybody else, I'm very surprised that the Nobel Prize committee has awarded President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009: OSLO — In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee announced Friday that it had awarded its annual peace prize to President Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” less than nine months ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 9, 2009 07:53
President Obama: No Troop Reduction in Afghanistan
And no large troop increase immediately, either: WASHINGTON — President Obama told Congressional leaders on Tuesday that he would not substantially reduce American forces in Afghanistan or shift the mission to just hunting terrorists there, but he indicated that he remained undecided about the major troop buildup proposed by his commanding general. Meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 7, 2009 09:41
The Washington Post: Right Wing Netherworld (Updated)
The Washington Post is a “right wing netherworld”? Who knew? Here's Fareed Zakaria, published in the Washington Post this morning: At his United Nations debut, Barack Obama urged global cooperation to combat nuclear proliferation, climate change and other problems that go beyond the borders of any one country. The speech was well received around the world, except in one ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 28, 2009 09:46
Fringe Views Not So Fringe
Via Eric Kleefeld, I see Public Policy Polling has surveyed Americans on various conspiracy theories and wild ideas and found substantial adherence to all of them, leading their Tom Jensen to ask "Is extremism becoming mainstream in 21st century American politics?" Our latest national poll would seem to say yes- 35% voters in the country either think that Barack Obama was ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 24, 2009 08:55
Obama Lowering Afghanistan Ambitions?
Obama administration officials are now admitting what has been apparent for weeks: that they are giving serious consideration to radically downsizing the Afghanistan mission. Peter Baker and Elisabeth Bumiller break the story in this morning's NYT, noting that a combination of factors have President Obama strongly reconsidering the Biden Plan, which he rejected as recently as March, which calls for ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 23, 2009 14:11
