Whitehouse.gov Gets Makeover
Yesterday, I complained that President Obama is using the White House website for partisan political purposes. Politico's Andy Barr digs deeper and says it's worse than it appears at first blush: The new White House website unveiled by President Barack Obama’s team Tuesday includes a shot at former President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Under the “agenda” portion of the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 21, 2009 10:16
Americans Too Free?
While I'm socially conservative on most issues, I'm by no stretch a Social Conservative. Yet I agree with Rod Dreher's rebuttal to those who argue that the salvation of the Republican Party will come from expelling the Religious Right: John McCain didn't get his clock cleaned because of his ardent advocacy for unborn life or his stout defense of traditional ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 2, 2008 11:59
Hurricane Gustav and the Republican Convention
Hurricane Gustav is barreling down on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who has dubbed this "the mother of all storms," has once again ordered the evacuation of New Orleans. Aside from the obvious humanitarian and logistical issues, this is also a huge wild card going into the GOP convention. President Bush is unlikely to make it to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 31, 2008 10:15
McCain Rejects and Denounces Hagee
John McCain has repudiated, rejected, denounced, distanced, and otherwise made it clear that he's not a big fan of John Hagee, who he thinks is a nut. In the face of mounting controversy over headline-grabbing statements from Pastor John Hagee, CNN has learned presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has decided to reject his endorsement. The Huffington Post had published a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 22, 2008 19:03
McCain Scoffs at Hagee Statements
John McCain has a nice, pithy response to his endorser Rev. John Hagee's claim that the "sins" of New Orleans and the city's acceptance of homosexuality were the reasons why God punished the City by sending Hurricane Katrina:"It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. I dont have anything additional to say. It's nonsense, it's nonsense, it's nonsense, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 25, 2008 13:43
John McCain ‘Honored’ To Receive Endorsement From Bigot
Yesterday, John McCain announced that he was "honored" to receive the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, a Texas-based preacher who can probably be most charitably described as "pro-Apocalypse". McCain lavished praise on him for being "pro-Israel", but as Sarah Posner (via Matthew Yglesias) points out, what he actually stands for is the destruction of Israel in order to facilitate ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 29, 2008 12:14
New Orleans to Demolish 1940s-Era Projects
The New Orleans city council today defied protestors and voted unanimously to tear down the first of four remaining major housing projects in the city to make way for mixed-income housing that will accommodate some, but not all, of the pre-Katrina public housing population. Needless to say, the self-appointed community activists were displeased: The scene outside New Orleans' City Hall ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 20, 2007 18:22
McCain Wins Iowa and New Hampshire Endorsements
John McCain has received all the key newspaper endorsements for the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, despite being a non-factor in the polls in the former and trailing in the latter. The Des Moines Register backed McCain despite his being in 5th place in their own polls; apparently, they're not so much trying to influence the outcome as to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 16, 2007 09:37
Trent Lott and the Politics of Cashing In
Bob Novak excoriates Trent Lott for resigning from the Senate in order to cash in as a lobbyist. Members of Congress talk among themselves about "getting out to make some money," and they do not mean pocket change. The swollen federal government and concomitant growth of massive lobbying firms means ex-lawmakers such as Lott and Pickering will quickly ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 29, 2007 13:18
Trent Lott Resigning
Trent Lott is resigning mid-term, reportedly in order to get out ahead of more restrictive ethics laws. MSNBC: NBC News has learned that Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the minority whip is in the midst of informing close allies that he plans to resign his senate seat before the end of the year. It's possible a formal announcement of his plans could ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 26, 2007 10:07
New Orleans Council Now Majority White
Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 19, 2007 13:57
FEMA Fake News Conference
The idiots at FEMA stagged a fake news conference to highlight their efforts in California wildfire relief. The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California. The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 27, 2007 08:07
Bobby Jindal Wins Louisiana Governor’s Race
Bobby Jindal has been elected governor of Louisiana. U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal became the nation's youngest governor and the first nonwhite to hold post in Louisiana since Reconstruction when he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents. Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 21, 2007 08:07
Sanchez Lambasts Handling of War (Updated)
The general who presided over the Abu Ghraib scandal gave a speech yesterday railing against the incompetent administration of the Iraq War. David Cloud summarizes for the NYT: In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 13, 2007 07:33
OTB Radio – Tonight at 7
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. The show will return to Wednesdays next week. I'll be joined tonight by my co-blogger Dave Schuler as well as special guest Jim Henley from the excellent blog Unqualified Offerings. We'll be discussing Senator Craig's trials and tribulations; animal ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 30, 2007 10:45
