When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D–CA) staff released a chart in May that attempted to illustrate how much past Presidents increased the national debt, it collided with a meticulous critique from Politifact that in turn led to a revised chart. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler weighed in as the original chart resurfaced recently, reporting on its methodological faults and misleading presentation. Even the revised version makes President Obama’s debt accrual appear minor compared to that of past Presidents. The facts show, however, that the Obama Administration is well on …
Tensions on the streets of Cairo continue to rise. Looters have taken advantage of the widespread disappearance of the reviled police to smash and grab what they can. Gangs have attacked prisons to release Muslim militants held there along with hundreds of common criminals, who have added to the chaos. The Egyptian army, which was welcomed yesterday by the teeming crowds of protesters in Cairo, has sought to restore order, but it is ill-equipped to handle the growing chaos triggered by the massive protests. Today, the military command dispatched two …
“What do you say to people who are losing patience with gas prices at $3 a gallon? And how much of a political price do you think you’re paying for that, right now?” This was a question asked of the president at a press conference in August…of 2006. The president was George W. Bush. In fact, it was a question that was asked in one way or another regularly during the entire eight years of the Bush presidency, regardless of where energy prices stood at that moment. In May 2004, …
While television and new technologies like Internet and cell phones are the focus of strategy at the Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees the U.S. government’s international broadcasting assets, shortwave radio remains by far the most effective means of reaching audiences around the world, particularly in the developing countries. It is far from an outdated technology, as is sometimes allleged. A highly relevant case in point is earthquake-stricken Haiti, the poorest and most underdeveloped country in the Americas. Since the earthquake on January 12, Voice of America has expanded its …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O2ke-AuJkQ[/youtube] The supposed assassination of a U.S. president is no laughing matter. All Americans of all political persuasions hold sacred the safety of our elected leaders. When baby boomers remember where they were on November 22, 1963, they don’t associate that remorse with a particular Kennedy policy, they merely know the despair and emptiness they felt. This is why it is so ghastly when a figurehead of any political movement advocates for the assassination of a U.S. President and even more revealing when the media excuses it. Liberal icon Gore Vidal, …
Poor Dubya. Not even the 43rd president’s exercise regimen — biking and running in addition to hitting the White House gym — is safe from No. 44’s criticism. Joe Curl wrote in The Washington Times the other day how President Obama and congressional liberals think the ol’ “blame Bush” refrain will keep working for them in the 2010 midterm elections. (Karl Rove, for one, doubts it. ”They have been doing that very intentionally in New Jersey and Virginia thus far,” the former president’s top strategist notes, “and both their candidates are behind.”) …
John Bolton, former UN ambassador under George W. Bush, wants to deliver results at the United Nations by making member country’s funding a voluntary contribution, not a mandatory payment. Bolton believes such a reform would enable the US to have influence commensurate with their level of UN funding, currently 22% of the overall UN budget. “The result of [mandatory funding] is that our contribution becomes like an entitlement,” he said. “There’s no incentive for effective performance, or responsiveness or transparency.” “If the main UN couldn’t count on its budget being funded by the United …
Yesterday Iraqis celebrated a new national holiday, National Sovereignty Day, which marked the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities. This partial pullback, which is a vindication of the Bush Administration’s surge strategy, has gone relatively unnoticed in Washington, perhaps because many members of the Obama Administration opposed the surge and remain ambivalent about progress in Iraq. Thanks to Bush’s surge, which enabled an Iraqi surge, violence in Iraq is down by 90 percent from its peak in 2007. Iraqi security forces have made great strides in improving their …
On September 11, 2008, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, at a mass rally of fanatics, ordered U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, out of the country within 72 hours. The reason for Duddy’s expulsion was Chávez’s pique with the diplomatic spat between the Bush Administration and the government of Bolivian Evo Morales. The expulsion speech was laced with hate-filled invectives. “Go straight to hell you, Yankees of s—t,” screamed Chávez. The four-letter expletive figured prominently throughout the speech. For a professional diplomat like Ambassador Duddy, those events were certainly traumatic, personally and professionally. …
