Obama will hit $1 billion in fundraising in 2012 | Obama raise a record $745 million in 2008. Republican campaign finance lawyers have predicted Obama could top $1 billion in 2012. 400 Super Bowl ticket owners stiffed after the league didn’t finish temporary seating on time | I am a fan of Jerry Jones and [...]
Barack Obama
Season II of The West Wing
New York Magazine has a long essay on the second act of Obama’s Presidency and what he is doing to revitalize it after the disastrous mid-term elections. For Obama, retooling on this scale does not come naturally or happily. Among the hallmarks of his political career has been constancy: a tight and basically static cadre [...]
The tale of two Flickr accounts
Take a look at both Barack Obama and Stephen Harper’s Flickr accounts. I was absolutely amazed at the difference in them. The Whitehouse acct is full of thousands and thousands of photos of Obama in a variety of contexts. The Situation Room, playing with his kids, playing practical jokes, preparing to confront the GOP, shooting [...]
The thinking that is behind the Tea Party
Fascinating interview with former G.O.P. Representative Bob Inglis (who lost a primary run off to a tea party candidate) in the 2010 mid-term election. It was the middle of a tough primary contest, and Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) had convened a small meeting with donors who had contributed thousands of dollars to his previous campaigns. [...]
The Climate of Hate
Paul Krugmann writes, It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; [...]
The President’s Photographer
Watch the full episode. See more The Presidents Photographer. I watched The Presidents Photographer last night on PBS. It features Pete Souza, Barack Obama’s official photographer but tells the stories of 50 years of White House photographers. It was an enjoyable hour of television and if you have some free time when it is on, [...]
Frank Rich on backing down to the banks
Liberals may be outraged but Frank Rich is right on Obama backing down to the banks and letting them do whatever they want to do Since Obama has neither aggressively pursued the crash’s con men nor compellingly explained how they gamed the system, he sometimes looks as if he’s fronting for the industry even if [...]
2012
Greg Ip in the Washington Post Let me take a stab at what the next crisis will be. Our deficit, as a share of GDP, is at a peacetime record, and the debt is climbing toward a post-World War II record. Thoughtful economists agree on the response: Combine stimulus for our fragile economy now with [...]
Who’s Your Daddy?
Apparently China is. According to Paul Krugman Last month a Chinese trawler operating in Japanese-controlled waters collided with two vessels of Japan’s Coast Guard. Japan detained the trawler’s captain; China responded by cutting off Japan’s access to crucial raw materials. And there was nowhere else to turn: China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s [...]
