We’ll let the governor speak for herself: “If there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.” Updated
Andrew Sullivan has words of encouragement for the protesters who’ve taken to the streets of California: “A word to those discouraged by last Tuesday: don’t be. We will win because we’re right. It’s as simple as that. We are equal.”
The U.S. presidential election was watched with interest, of course, by Israelis, some of whom favored John McCain because they believed he would have been a better “friend of Israel” than Barack Obama will be. Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wonders if there aren’t some problems with this idea.
Why is Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens, a felon, leading in his race for re-election after pollsters predicted a decisive loss? It could have something to do with the fact that roughly one-third of the ballots have yet to be counted, and thousands more were just discovered.
Perhaps we should be more surprised than we are by the news that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and his DOT crew managed to sneak a handful of sentences into the approved bailout bill that amounted to a $150-billion “quiet windfall” for American banks, as The Washington Post put it.
When his term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee is up, Howard Dean will step aside to make room for a guy or gal of President-elect Barack Obama’s choosing. Dean has received both praise and scorn for his performance as chairman.
During the Proposition 8 campaign and amid the fallout since California voters approved the banning of same-sex marriage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proved that, although he once was teased for grunting and mugging his way through dialogue-challenged movies, he can now mince words with the best of the political crowd.
The Defense Business Board, an official oversight body appointed by the secretary of defense, has warned the president-elect that the Pentagon’s bloated budget ($512 billion this year, not including war costs) is “not sustainable.” An unprecedented spending spree since 9/11 has run head-on into a financial meltdown, and Barack Obama is now stuck in the middle.
Barack and Michelle Obama exchanged warm greetings with George and Laura Bush when they visited the White House Monday. Continuing a tradition, No. 43 and No. 44 held a private meeting, with only the two of them present. The public holds the two men in opposite regard, according to a Gallup poll released the day of their meeting.
Since 2004, U.S. operatives have been crossing the borders of friends and foes alike in a secret global hunt for al-Qaida. According to a bombshell report in The New York Times, a dozen or so raids have been conducted in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere since Donald Rumsfeld issued a secret order with the backing of the president.
Instead of buying lots of new cheap things, people are busy stuffing what’s left of their money in mattresses. That has China, where the goodies come from, worried. The Chinese government has decided a stimulus is in order, to the tune of 4 trillion yuan (more than $550 billion).
Two states, Nebraska and Maine, have rules that call for splitting their electoral votes by congressional district. Now, for the first time in the modern era, one has done so. Barack Obama has won one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, according to the Omaha World-Herald. (Maine’s four votes went to Obama on Election Day.) The president-elect’s total now stands at 365.
For all the talk of checks and balances, the president has sweeping powers. Barack Obama is expected to demonstrate that by quickly reversing as many as 200 of President Bush’s executive orders after taking the oath of office Jan. 20. The president-elect has reportedly had scores of advisers working on the matter for months.
A Russian navy submarine propelled by nuclear power was heading back to port during a test run in the Sea of Japan when the fire-extinguishing system was accidentally activated near the sub’s bow, killing over 20 people and injuring at least 21 others aboard.
Former Vice President and presidential hopeful Al Gore seized upon the “change” theme that Barack Obama so successfully rode to victory in this year’s election to remind readers of Sunday’s New York Times that there’s one kind of change we don’t need: climate change.
This is spooky: A group of journalism students from the City University of New York filed a Freedom of Information request and discovered that the FBI tracked the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam for more than two decades.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during Barack Obama’s apology call to Nancy Reagan on Friday. Obama called Mrs. Reagan after making a jokey comment, during his first press conference since he was elected president, in which he referred obliquely to her reported esoteric interests during her time in the White House.
Having suggested that fellow Minnesotan Al Franken should concede defeat earlier in the week, Norm Coleman was keeping mum by Friday afternoon, when it was discovered that Franken was trailing his Republican rival for the U.S. Senate by only 238 votes.
Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has avoided criminal charges for his well-publicized escapades with sex workers while in office. Largely responsible for the development was a decision by federal prosecutors to investigate Spitzer on questionable financial transactions—where they found no evidence of misuse—rather than the more titillating accusation of “transporting prostitutes across state lines.”
As if to prevent surplus national exuberance over the electoral defeat of John McCain on Tuesday, the Labor Department announced that the country’s unemployment rate has hit a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, with 240,000 jobs lost in October as joblessness continues to increase in the face of economic turmoil.
Time’s political sage offers the thorniest of olive branches to the Connecticut senator, who, he writes, “has been a flagrantly dreadful public figure these past two years.”
You may have knocked on doors for Barack Obama, but it’s possible you gave money to John McCain. GoodGuide has a tool that sorts donations by party, logo and industry. Tech companies seem to prefer Democrats while food companies love Republicans. The banks, of course, throw money at everybody.
Three months after Georgia and Russia briefly battled—a clash that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili blamed on Russian aggression—the original story about the short summer war is being reconsidered in light of new information from independent sources.
Tuesday’s elections are a thing of the past, but the battle over California’s Proposition 8 is still going on. On Thursday, a large group of demonstrators marched in Los Angeles in protest of the ban on gay marriage, with the Westwood area’s Mormon temple as their eventual destination.
On Wednesday, Fox News’ Carl Cameron kicked off a round of Republican in-fighting that had snowballed considerably by Wednesday, thanks to reports from unnamed McCain campaign informants about Sarah Palin’s alleged “diva"-like behavior.
Chevron in the White House
