This is not change we can believe in. Not if Robert Rubin or his protégé, Lawrence Summers, get to call the shots on the economy in President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration.
Getting a grip on the economic catastrophe that rocked the country during the fall of 2008 is no easy feat, what with so many players, back-room deals, bills, upswings and meltdowns to consider. Updated
The host of “The Colbert Report” asks a vetting veteran of the Clinton administration, “What if you have a dark secret, but also an unquenchable thirst for power?”
Sen. Joe Lieberman is back in the Democratic fold—sort of. Sen. Harry Reid explained the outcome of his party’s huddle on Lieberman’s future role, and Lieberman expressed his relief, in a press briefing on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faced a lineup of vexed, perplexed and otherwise agitated members of Congress, including Reps. Barney Frank, Ron Paul and Nydia Velazquez, all eager to ask some serious questions about the infamous bailout.
Good thing President Bush was there to remind attendees at last weekend’s G-20 summit that capitalism isn’t all bad; after all, it gave us Hot Wheels and iPods!
It looks like a $2,075 investment in a sketch by then-no-name artist and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama could really have paid off. The doodle, drawn as part of a 2007 “National Doodle Day” charity event, is now said to be worth in the six figures.
They’ve taken on Scientologists, celebrities and even Canadians. Now “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are one step closer to their apparent goal of becoming equal-opportunity offenders with their Mormon-themed musical.
President-elect Barack Obama is bringing the fireside chat to the Web, using the technology at his disposal to address Americans online in a new twist on the check-in pioneered by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Sen. Robert Byrd, 91, announced that he will give up the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee to Sen. Daniel Inouye, 84. The torch has passed to a new generation.
The Americans who voted for Barack Obama as president were promised change they could count on, but it rather looks as if they may actually be asked to make do with a mildly refurbished Clinton administration, with many of the same officials and nearly all of the same policies.
We will look back on the Bush years and find it incredible, and disgraceful, that individuals were “purchased” from tribal warlords, tortured at Abu Ghraib, abducted to secret CIA prisons, whisked to Guantanamo and held for years without charges.
The giant discounter is the only store where hard-squeezed consumers can afford to buy anything, and so it has kept posting sales gains amid the retail bloodbath.
There is a second transition under way over which President-elect Barack Obama has no control—the transition of conservatives to minority status. How they do this will have a powerful impact on the new presidency.
War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate.
Scores of independent groups went into hyperdrive for this election, reaching millions of people with some of the most vicious attack ads of the year. But figuring out what impact the groups actually had on the campaigns is a tricky proposition.
On Saturday, people took to the streets all around the U.S. to protest the passage of California’s Proposition 8 and to show their support for same-sex marriage. We’ve compiled 40 of our favorite photos from Spokane to Houston to New York City.
Those famous “multiple Democratic sources close to the transition” have revealed three more members of Barack Obama’s Cabinet: Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as secretary of health and human services, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as chief of homeland security, and Obama’s billionaire buddy and top fundraiser Penny Pritzker to head the Commerce Department.
The California Supreme Court has agreed to examine the state’s recently adopted marriage ban, scheduling a hearing for March. The court will decide whether Prop. 8 was a sweeping revision or a simple amendment to the state’s constitution, and whether legally married same-sex couples should suffer a blanket divorce.
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby seems to be one of the only real capitalists left on Capitol Hill. The Alabaman argued Wednesday that U.S. auto firms should be left to the realities of the market, letting companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler go bankrupt and forcing the failing industry to carry out what Shelby believes are much-needed reforms.
If it looks heartless and sounds heartless, it probably is heartless. A direct quote from a Voice of America news piece: “Israel is ignoring pleas by the United Nations to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, standing firm on its blockade of the Palestinian territory.”
Analysts believe the economy is already in “horrific shape”—with news this month of record-breaking drops in the cost of living and new home construction—and is inching closer to a dangerous deflationary period, which could worsen the current economic crisis by making debts even harder to repay.
Sen. Ted Kennedy has asked Sen. Hillary Clinton to take up an important post shaping landmark health care legislation. The offer comes as Clinton reportedly weighs continuing her work in the Senate against joining Barack Obama’s administration as secretary of state.
Is it possible to foretell how a president will lead based on a set of indicators culled from past precedents? That’s a hard call—but John Dean is willing to take his chances in his latest column about the future of America’s highest office.
Stephen Colbert Gets Vetted
