Top Dems: Obama Won't Get Health Care Bill in 2009 Catch a Clue Time: Obama on Oct. "I am absolutely confident that we are going to get health care done by the end of this year, and Nancy Pelosi is just as confident."
Well, it wasn't really a load of votes, but Kathryn Lopez is reporting that longtime national conservative activist Barbara Comstock won a very close and very important victory over a tough incumbent Democrat for a seat in the VA House of Delegates. Barbara is a true conservative, with experience on the Hill, and as communications director for the wonderful Ashcroft Justice Department,
Again. All the buzz before the voting was about Obama. Would this be a referendum on Obama’s first year? Not really. (Snip) But the GOP won big tonight because the voting was a referendum on the economy. On that top issue, voters let out a primal scream. Which will echo across Obama’s second year.
Actress Cate Blanchett, who has played Queen Elizabeth I, is performing here, portraying someone less than regal -- flurried, anxious Blanche DuBois, in Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire." If Obama administration officials involved in formulating Afghanistan policy see her, they should wince when she speaks DuBois's signature line: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
We knew it was going to be a bad election night for the Democrats when former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announced on NBC's "Today" program that "the results of these elections tend to be overread." Certainly that was not the prevailing opinion in Democratic circles in 2008, when giddiness over Barack Obama's election reached manic proportions. Virginia, which voted Democratic for president for the first time since 1964, was singled out
NEW YORK – Voters nervous about the economy and fed up with the political establishment dominated the off-year elections, sending a strong message to President Barack Obama, who won the White House as a change agent but has himself become the face of political power and incumbency. Independents who supported Obama broke heavily for Republicans Tuesday, helping the GOP win marquee governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey.
I enjoy a bit of adrenaline when I travel. I’ve paraglided off Andean cliffs and tracked forest elephants in wartime Liberia. So why not take a vacation in Colombia? My imagination awash with stereotypes—drug lord Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel assassinating politicians, Marxist FARC guerrillas kidnapping tourists—I booked my flight to Bogotá, heart pumping. But Bogotá didn’t square with my stereotypes.
GUANGZHOU, China – US President Barack Obama's half-brother Mark Ndesandjo Wednesday broke his silence to speak of their abusive father at the launch of his first novel. Ndesandjo, who has lived in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen for seven years, said he wrote "Nairobi to Shenzhen" after a string of extraordinary events -- including his brother being elected president -- made him come to terms with his past.
WASHINGTON – One year after his election, President Barack Obama is coaxing states across the country to rewrite education laws and cut deals with unions as they pursue his vision for school reform. Obama is visiting Wisconsin, where lawmakers are poised to change a law to boost their state's chances at $5 billion in education grants, the most money a president has ever had for overhauling schools. Nine other states have taken similar steps,
WASHINGTON – Get on the health overhaul bandwagon, or don't count on our help in your re-election. That's the hardball message liberal groups are hurling at moderate Democratic senators in a battle that is dividing their party. Their demands: Support a bill that offers optional government-run health coverage and oppose Republican attempts to derail the legislation.
Lessons from off-year elections tend to be overdrawn, as much a reflection of political reporters trying to justify their existence as any message that may have been sent by the electorate. But if there is one thing that Democratic candidates in next year's midterm congressional elections might want to take from the party's bad night on Tuesday, it is this: You are on your own.
CUBA has announced that it has had to defer payments to its international suppliers due to the harsh global economic and financial reality compounded by the US-unilateral embargo. (Snip) He said due to the complex circumstances arising from the global crisis compounded by the harsh US-imposed commercial, financial and economic blockade, Cuba was unable to pay its debts.
ABC’s Jordyn Phelps and Sunlen Miller report: President Obama will not travel to Germany to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9. White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that President Obama’s schedule will not allow for a visit to Germany. “Obviously, we have a lot to work on here and we have commitments for an upcoming Asia trip,” Gibbs said.
Havana -- The habanero peppers, oranges and peanuts cost more at Cuba's free-market "agros" -- farmers markets where vendors, not the government, set prices. But food stalls overflow with abundance not seen elsewhere on the shortage-plagued island. So when the Communist Party served notice that it plans to impose price controls at those agros -- ending one of Cuba's few capitalist experiments -- angry shoppers fearing yet more shortages turned on state inspectors
A Honduran legislative committee voted not to convene a special session of Congress to consider returning the country's ousted leader, in a move likely to dash chances of Manuel Zelaya's returning to power even temporarily under a deal brokered last week by the U.S. On Tuesday, a committee of 13 legislators voted to not convene the special session, opting instead to wait until Congress receives nonbinding legal opinions
After months of ill-advised interference by the United States, two Honduran presidents are back on speaking terms. Interim leader Roberto Micheletti and the ousted Manuel Zelaya have reportedly reached an agreement that could return Zelaya to power as a lame duck for roughly one month, before a newly elected president takes office. President Obama may spin this as a U.S. victory, but in fact it's the culmination of the administration's mystifying diplomacy.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama used the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis to urge Tehran to make concessions over its nuclear program, saying it needs to turn the page on the past and forge a new relationship with the United States. "It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity and justice for its people," Obama said
Rallies marking the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy takeover in Tehran have started in capital Tehran as well as other cities across the country. Tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and many political persuasions have staged a rally at the site of the former US embassy in Tehran, better known in Iranian history as the 'Den of Spies'.
The infamous cocaine baron is said to have lit a bonfire using wads of US dollars at a mountain hideout while he was being hunted by authorities. Sebastian Marroquin, who has changed his name from Juan Pablo Escobar, claimed his father burnt the notes when he realised his daughter Manuela was suffering from hypothermia.
SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. — Democrats won a special election in New York State’s northernmost Congressional district Tuesday, a setback for national conservatives who heavily promoted a third candidate in what became an intense debate over the direction of the Republican Party. The Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, led with 49 percent of the vote, while the Conservative Party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman, had 46 percent.
Friend and foe alike have wondered how Barack Obama wangled a seat next to Edward Said (pronounced sigh-EED), at an Arab-American community dinner in Chicago in 1998 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Palestinian nakbah, or disaster. At the time, Obama was an obscure state senator and Said, according to the Nation, was 'probably the best-known intellectual in the world.'' (Snip) It is possible, too, that Said and Obama ran in the same radical New
Gay-marriage opponents are claiming victory in a closely watched referendum in Maine on a new state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed. The law in question was passed by the Legislature in May but never took effect because of a petition drive by conservatives. With more than 84 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, the side seeking to repeal the law had 53 percent of the vote.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that the ''Obama administration, leading Senate Democrats and a coalition of news organizations have reached tentative agreement on legislation providing greater protections against the fining or imprisonment of reporters who refuse to identify confidential sources.'' The 'Free Flow of Information Act'' would allow federal courts the power to stifle subpoenas for information from reporters or privileged "covered" persons if the judge determines the public interest is better served
Here is one of the loudest messages of the 2009 off-off-year elections: Conservatives in America will no longer let their opponents define them as outside of the mainstream. They will not submit to Democrats. Or to the media. Or to Beltway Republican capitulationists. They will not ''rebrand.'' They will not sit down. They will not shut up. (Snip) New York Times columnist Frank Rich decried the right's ''Jacobins'' and ''Stalinists'' who he said joined a
I made The New York Times last week. It even ran my picture. My mother would be proud. Unfortunately, the story was critical. It said, ''Critics have leaped on Mr. Stossel's speaking engagements as the latest evidence of conservative bias on the part of Fox.' Which ''critics'' had ''leaped''? The reporter mentioned Rachel Maddow. (Snip) In August, AFP hired me to do the very same thing. I give the money to charity. The Times didn't
President Obama says he is a fan of the free market. Back in September, Obama spoke to Wall Street. He stated, ''I have always been a strong believer in the power of the free market.'' (Snip) To paraphrase Spanish dueler Inigo Montoya from ''The Princess Bride'': President Obama, you keep using the phrase ''free markets.'' I do not think it means what you think it means.Here is how the free market works: open competition among
Down-ballot Republicans, riding a sweep at the top of the Virginia ticket, maintained their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates, and appeared poised to widen that margin. The GOP managed to stanch a recent Democratic tide in the state legislature. Democrats had gained 11 seats in the past three elections, leaving Republicans with a six-seat working majority after holding 64 seats in 2001.
