Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sounded a hopeful note in Washington Saturday as he extended an invitation to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to open up a dialogue about, among other things, the planned U.S. missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
After claiming some credit for Barack Obama’s presidential win, longtime Bush loyalist Karl Rove barely endures the rest of his Q&A with notorious left-wing rag The New York Times. We’d like to know what kind of “funny stamps” Rove used to decorate his congratulatory note to Obama.
Many of us living in California definitely took notice when the battle over Proposition 8 suddenly heated up and became more contentious in the days before it passed. The New York Times has the story on what happened in that final stretch before the election.
Juneau is hardly the top American target for terrorists, so what’s Blackwater doing in Alaska’s capital? Author Stuart Archer Cohen has spotted uniformed guards from the private security contractor, and he has some clues as to why they’re there.
It doesn’t take a media analyst (or knowledge of Hebrew) to detect the obvious similarities between the Web site for Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative candidate for prime minister in Israel, and that of America’s presidential sweepstakes winner Barack Obama.
Now here’s one way to win elections: Government officials in Mexico City are offering free medication to hombres of a certain age who suffer from erectile dysfunction.
It’s been only about a week since Israel closed the border into the Gaza Strip, denying the occupied territory humanitarian supplies and fuel and even blocking journalists, but the UK-based aid group Oxfam is already warning that Gaza “faces disaster” if the blockade is not immediately broken.
If you thought U.S. democracy was a sham, consider a constitutional amendment passed by the Russian parliament Wednesday that lengthens the country’s presidential term from four years to six, paving the way for a certain Vladimir Putin to come back to power as president as early as next year.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to support the well-dressed and maritally oppressed, you’re about to get your chance. On Saturday, protesters will take to the streets all across this great, if slightly homophobic, nation to take a stand for equality. Find out where to go here. And for inspiration, we turn to Andrew Sullivan.
Sightings of Hillary Clinton in Chicago on Thursday, coupled with reports from inside Barack Obama’s camp, added weight to the rumors that the president-elect is considering his former rival as a Cabinet member—secretary of state.
While Minnesota gets ready for a recount, it looks like one way or another the state’s U.S. Senate race will be decided in court. With bad memories of Florida, Al Franken and Norm Coleman’s campaigns are already arguing about whose vote should count and why.
Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher is determined to prolong his flash-in-the-pan political stardom. The media ham’s Web site, featuring “Joe the Blogger” and “Joe the Forum,” promotes his “Forthcoming Book on American Values.”
Blast-from-the-past alert! The world has undoubtedly been waiting to hear the sage words of former Monica Lewinsky confidante Linda Tripp (channeled in this photo by John Goodman on “SNL") concerning the historic election of America’s first black president, and luckily, she has delivered.
With nearly 62 million passengers having traveled through its terminals last year, Los Angeles International Airport is the world’s fifth-busiest. Thanks to lax security practices, it’s also embarrassingly vulnerable to cyber attack, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
As Alaska election officials continue to count ballots, Democrat Mark Begich has gone from roughly 3,000 votes down to a lead of about 800. His rival, convicted felon and “series of tubes” prophet Sen. Ted Stevens, will likely be expelled from the U.S. Senate if he somehow wins.
Here’s a solution to the energy crisis Americans are sure to love: A company called Geoplasma is building a plant in Florida that will vaporize garbage with a plasma torch, turning 1,500 tons of waste into 60 megawatts of the good stuff. It may not be as clean as solar, but hey, America is the Saudi Arabia of trash.
“I will never apologize for changing a strategy or an approach if the facts change,” explained Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who has retreated from his original plan of buying up near-worthless mortgage securities with taxpayer funds. Instead, Paulson will continue to pump money into troubled banks in exchange for equity, a scheme that has proved more expeditious and popular.
Nancy Pelosi isn’t as showy as some of her predecessors, but according to a profile in the Politico, the most powerful woman in American political history is firmly in control of her domain. Tom “the Hammer” DeLay says she is “the most powerful speaker in a generation—she will be able to do anything she wants.” As one anonymous lawmaker put it, “Whatever Nancy wants, Nancy gets.”
While some whales’ hearts are as big as cars, the hearts on the Supreme Court that ruled Wednesday against a ban on high-powered sonar in Navy training exercises must be shrinking by the minute. The decision was a defeat to environmentalists, who argue that sonar panics whales, makes their ears bleed and pushes them to beach themselves.
In the face of California’s unsettling passage of Proposition 8 barring gay marriage, gay couples in Connecticut are beginning to exercise their equal rights after a final court hearing cleared the way for same-sex unions, ending a long legal battle in the Constitution State.
The legacy of George Bush’s two “wars of liberation” may already be judged as foreign policy blunders, but the real costs of war remain even after the truism of failed empire. In Afghanistan, acid attacks on at least 15 female students mark a worrisome trend in women’s rights there. And in Iraq, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on a patrol of U.S. troops, killing two.
While worries over Google’s “big brother” surveillance practices still worry many, a softer, more health-conscious side of the search giant is partnering with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The tool, “Google Flu Trends,” uses the aggregate regional data obtained from flu-related searches to predict epidemics weeks before they can be diagnosed by traditional measures.
George W. Bush has had no shortage of gaffes during his reign of terror. One such miscue may also be the most enduring image of his presidency—that speech in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner before his war in Iraq turned into an outright catastrophe. He now regrets that moment, among others.
We’ll see how long he’s able to keep this up, but at least for the immediate future, Barack Obama is aiming to keep lobbyists at bay, issuing strict guidelines for his transition team that Obama aide John Podesta described Tuesday on a conference call to reporters.
After a brief hiatus, which happened to coincide with the last phase of the presidential campaign season, the Project for a New American Century’s Web site is back up and running, thanks to Bill Kristol and his chums at the neocon think tank.
Chevron in the White House
