Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
My previous two posts on Greece reminded me of something I meant to comment upon the other day. On Friday’s Morning Edition there was a story on the Greek crisis that had the following observation that struck me: Resolving this crisis has taken years, and there’s a reason: a debt crisis has never really been [...]
Via the BBC: Greek MPs pass austerity plan amid violent protests Greece’s parliament has passed a controversial package of austerity measures, demanded by the eurozone and IMF in return for a 130bn-euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout to avoid default. [...] The austerity measures include: 15,000 public-sector job cuts liberalisation of labour laws lowering the minimum wage [...]
Friedman shifts from calling for a third party, to calling on the GOP to get serious.
The NYT has an interesting piece on the ongoing limted v. big governemnt debate.
Via the AP: US Marines posed with Nazi symbol in Afghanistan The Marine Corps on Thursday once again did damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS — a special unit that murdered millions of [...]
Maggie Gallagher’s anti-gay marriage argument is an example of pure conservative thinking.
Via the BBC: Greece bailout: Coalition fails to agree cuts Greek PM Lucas Papademos has failed to secure the support of his coalition for a raft of new austerity measures, after more than seven hours of talks. [...] A statement issued by the prime minister’s office said the aim of the meeting with the troika [...]
I know that Doug Mataconis has already noted the turnout figures, but I like the way Ron Elving put in it in a write-up for NPR: Not only was the Missouri vote a "beauty contest," binding no delegates, but the turnout there was less than 6 percent of the voting-age population — a paltry number [...]
Romney polls the winner in any head-to-head matchup within the GOP candidiate pool.
Last week, Doug Mataconis noted the claim by Mitt Romney that Americans “are the only people on the earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem.” Doug linked to some photographic evidence that contradicted that claim. For those who prefer moving pictures, I give you Glenn Kessler. Why [...]
If one has views that one will not change even in the face of the best case scenario for new data against those views, then one cannot claim to be an analyst.
Via the AP: Roseanne Barr seeks Green Party presidential nod Barr has submitted paperwork to the Green Party for her candidacy. The party’s presidential nominee will be selected at a convention in Baltimore in July. Well, I didn’t see that coming. Is Barr even famous enough to qualify as a celebrity candidate at this point [...]
Regarding why he did not congratulate Mitt Romney on his Florida win, Newt Gingrich said the following: "They outspent me five to one to quote destroy Newt Gingrich?" Gingrich said in an interview on CNN’s "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." "You know, I think that doesn’t deserve congratulations. I think that’s reprehensible, I think [...]
UCLA political scientists, Lynn Vavreck shows in a post at Erza Klein’s WaPo blog that the unemployment rate is not the best predictor of election outcomes. Instead, the place to look is GDP growth: The data suggest that for every 1 percent growth in GDP from the fourth to the second quarter of an election [...]
Yes, the US Constitution has been the most successful such document in human history. That does not mean it is a good template for other countries.
“Economic conditions are entirely different today than they were in Reagan’s era, and different conditions demand different policies. Those who say otherwise are simply engaging in cookie-cutter economics — proposing whatever was popular and seemed to work once, without regard to changing circumstances”—Bruce Barlett in a WaPo piece entitled “Why the GOP should stop invoking [...]
The latest example of no-knock mistakes: FBI Uses Chainsaw In Raid On Wrong Fitchburg Apartment At 6:04 last Thursday morning, just before Sanchez’ alarm was set to go off, she heard a pounding outside her second floor apartment. [...] Within moments, the chainsaw had cut through most of her door, and someone on the FBI’s [...]
Newt may challenge the winner-take-all allocation of delegates.
Matthew Dowd asks: What happens in an election when two candidates who are each unelectable run against each other in the fall?
Yahoo has the following story: Jake Reilly’s ‘Amish Project:’ 90 Days Without a Cell Phone, Email and Social Media Could you live without daily electronic conveniences — Twitter, Facebook, email, texting and more — for 90 days? Jake P. Reilly, a 24-year-old copywriting student at the Chicago Portfolio School, did just that. My immediate reaction [...]
Given the serious media attention that Florida has received over the last week or so, and given that Florida’s primary is going to be discussed as being decisively important for probably most of the month of February, I am betting that the state’s GOP leadership is actually quite pleased that it decided to buck the [...]
Well, that’s at least what Newt is going to say after tonight (Via The Hill): With 68 percent of precincts reporting, Romney led Newt Gingrich 47 percent to 31 percent. Former Sen. Rick Santorum came in third with 13 percent and Rep. Ron Paul was last with 7 percent. I, for one, find the attacks [...]
Via the BBC: Eurozone unemployment hits new record The jobless rate in the 17 countries that use the single currency was 10.4% in December, unchanged from November’s figure which was revised up from 10.3%. Some 16.5 million people were out of work in the eurozone in December, up 751,000 on the year before. The highest [...]
E.D. Kain: To be quite honest, all these dream candidates people keep swooning over – Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, etc. – aren’t all that much different than Romney. Governors, somewhat more moderate than the vanguard of the conservative movement. The big difference is that they have no organization, they aren’t on any ballots, and they [...]
We, as a country, need to remember that do not hold levers that allow us to move events this way or that
Newt constantly lays claim to the title “historian” and asserts it as evidence of his insights and as a qualification for office. As such, the quality of the claim matters.
CNN is reporting that Rick Perry is going to announce his exit from the GOP nomination process. Or, more accurately, that he is going to announce that it has finally dawned on him that he exited the race some time ago. Update (Doug Mataconis): Here’s the link: Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) – Rick Perry is [...]
If you are going to talk about the unemployment rate, at least talk about the whole picture.
Nate Silver says Mitt Romney: Although Mr. Huntsman had relatively little support in the polls outside of New Hampshire, recent surveys suggested that the plurality of his supporters had Mr. Romney as their second choice. [...] Because Mr. Huntsman had relatively little support in South Carolina — between 1 and 6 percent of the vote [...]
Via The Hill: Perry vows to fight on, regardless of result in South Carolina primary Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday vowed to continue his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in Florida, regardless of his finish in the South Carolina primary. "That’s our intention," he told Candy Crowley on CNN’s State of the Union. [...]
Via the BBC: Mohamed ElBaradei will end Egypt presidency bid Mr ElBaradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, said he had taken his decision in protest at the way Egypt’s military rulers governed "as though no revolution had taken place". [...] "My conscience does not permit me to run for the presidency or [...]
Is a vote for Gingrich (or whomever) necessarily an anti-Romney vote?
Ars Technica reports: Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA. It appears that members of both the House and Senate are starting to feel some serious pressure on this issue. For a SOPA FAQ, see Reddit (h/t: mistermix). And amusingly, the main author of SOPA, Lamar Smith (R-TX) was caught violating copyrights [...]
Via the BBC: Mexico drug war deaths over five years now total 47,515 That number is since 2006 and the escalation of the drug war by President Felipe Calderon. According to the piece, while the murder rate continues to increase on an annual basis, the growth rate has slowed: The PGR said that the 11% [...]
Via the Political Fix: Spence’s college degree? Economics, yes, but of the home, Republican Dave Spence, the plastics guru running for governor, says he "earned a degree in Economics" from the University of Missouri. That may be true — but it is not entirely accurate. According to the university, Spence’s degree is not in economics. [...]
