Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Yesterday, I noted that now that Rand Paul has gone from a primary race to the general election that: “Paul is now facing a very different kind of campaign” because he is now going to be scrutinized in new ways and will have to explain himself to a different kind of electorate if he is [...]
Via the NYT: Specter Defeat Signals a Wave Against Incumbents: Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who left the Republican Party a year ago in hopes of salvaging a 30-year career, was rejected on Tuesday by Democratic primary voters, with Representative Joe Sestak winning the party’s nomination on an anti-incumbent wave that is defining the midterm [...]
“It is more than a little ironic that NATO has committed itself to defining a new strategic concept at precisely the moment the transatlantic relationship counts for less than at any time since the 1930s.” So begins an FT op-ed by CFR president Richard Haass. I assess this argument in “Goodbye to Europe?,” a lengthy [...]
Greetings to the readers of OTB. My name is Steven Taylor and I will be joining the regular stable of bloggers here at the site. I have been blogging at my own site, PoliBlog, for seven years starting a few weeks after James started this site—indeed, his foray into the then new world of blogging [...]
A small but growing number of Americans are renouncing their citizenship because the tax burden outweighs their perceived benefit: According to government records, 502 expats renounced U.S. citizenship or permanent residency in the fourth quarter of 2009 — more than double the number of expatriations in all of 2008. And these figures don’t include the [...]
Adam Ozimek, Alex Tabarrok, Andrew Sullivan, Miss Cellania, and others post this picture of “Human Freight Car” Chauncey Morlan (1869-1906), one of the freak show fatties who traveled with the Barnum & Bailey Circus: Alex wonders, “What would the circus goers of 1890 have thought if they were told that in the America of 2010 [...]
After a brief hiatus, the next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern. The tired and very, very busy Dave Schuler and I will be joined by a special guest, Colonel Pat Lang of Sic Semper Tyrannis to talk about the WikiLeaks Iraq video, Afghan president Hamid [...]
In a shocking new development, Americans are unhappy with the Federal government. Two-thirds of Americans are “dissatisfied” or downright “angry” about the way the federal government is working, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. On average, the public estimates that 53 cents of every tax dollar they send to Washington is “wasted.” Man, [...]
The 65 percentage-point gap between Democrats’ (88%) and Republicans’ (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama is easily the largest for any president in his first year in office, greatly exceeding the prior high of 52 points for Bill Clinton. So begins Jeffrey Jones‘ introduction of a new Gallup poll. Here’s the graphic illustration: [...]
A recent Gallup poll shows that the American public agrees with the Supreme Court that campaign contributions are free speech but that most nonetheless want to limit said speech. Fifty-seven percent of Americans consider campaign donations to be a protected form of free speech, and 55% say corporate and union donations should be treated the [...]
A new CDC study suggests that Americans may have reached the limits of human obesity. Americans, at least as a group, may have reached their peak of obesity, according to data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Wednesday. The numbers indicate that obesity rates have remained constant for at least five years among [...]
Is the United States a Christian nation? Well, a whopping 78 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But that’s less than ever before. And the number of people identifying as having no religious identity is at its highest point ever, as is number saying religion is “not very important” in their lives. Gallup’s Frank [...]
An air strike in Yemen may have killed the top leaders of al Qaead’s branch in that country, along with an American-born cleric linked to the Fort Hood massacre. A Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda’s regional branch on Thursday, and an American Muslim preacher linked to the [...]
In my early morning Teddy Kennedy Dead at 77 media roundup post, I observed, “That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for [...]
The events in Honduras today have been some of the more dramatic in recent Latin American (and especially Central American) politics. The events are certainly of relevance to the democratic evolution of Honduras. Dave Schuler asked that I post a few comments given my academic focus on Latin America. If anyone is interested in the [...]
Truly weird news: GM is selling Hummer, the instant classic vehicle based on the U.S. Army’s Jeep replacement, to a Chinese firm. Fighting back, we’re replacing the wife’s Acura SUV (made in Maryville, Ohio) with another American made vehicle, a Toyota Sienna minivan manufactured in the American heartland – Princeton, Indiana. (We’ve never really liked [...]
USA! USA! USA! The United States is the world’s new facial hair super power, having captured twelve world championship titles out of eighteen categories plus overall at the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska on May 23, 2009. Possessing home field advantage, the USA was able to dethrone Germany which had dominated this [...]
Steve Benen brings up a point I’ve seen made in a few places recently: Dickering over how to pronounce “foreign” names like Sotomayor or Pakistan. I’m in agreement with Mark Krikorian that “Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits.” Where to draw [...]
In what has to be the oddest Peggy Noonan column ever, she extrapolates from a single story of a Michigan family that decided to give up some modern luxuries to engage in subsistence farming to a surreal future in which droves of people throw off the shackles of conspicuous consumption. Many think that no matter [...]
Stacy McCain decries America’s “cultural illiteracy” and bemoans the fact that kids today may be smart but they’re ignorant. [H]ow many know enough French — or enough European history — to know who Clemenceau was, or what he meant? The Tiger might as well have never lived, so far as the average college student is [...]
This morning Andrew Osborn at WSJ gives Igor Panarin substantially more attention than he deserves. I’ve seen Panarin quoted in various Russian news media over the last several years—he’s been predicting for about a decade that the U. S. would disintegrate in 2010. He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI [...]
There is some discussion on Eschaton on the topic of anti-Americanism. Atrios posts: “Opposing the War is Not Anti-American. It’s the people who claim it is who are. Why is this not obvious?” I agree with Atrios but at least partially disagree with the commentary that follows on his feedback forum, some of which suggests [...]
