January 16th, 2012
Sean Penn was officially made an ambassador at large for Haiti on Saturday night for his relief work for the country, still reeling from the devastating earthquake two years ago. (more)
March 7th, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will nominate Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, the son and grandson of Chinese immigrants, to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, a senior administration official said Monday. A formal announcement could come as early as Tuesday. (more)
February 1st, 2011
Not everyone can pick up on satire and apparently that includes MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. (more)
December 30th, 2010
When Ann Wagner, the former United States ambassador to Luxembourg, returned from abroad in 2009, she felt that she has not entirely left Europe behind. (more)
December 13th, 2010
Republican Rep. Ron Paul told The New York Times that there is at least a 50-50 chance that he’ll run for president a second time, but that he would also factor the economic situation into his decision, among other things. (more)
December 10th, 2010
| Obama must convince liberal rich people that it is OK for them to keep their money – We’re gonna need a bigger shoe: Carbon footprint of Cancun climate conference significantly larger than last year – WaPo finds GAO flat-out lied in for-profit report – Indian ambassador groped by TSA for second time in three months – Cruel irony: This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner earned it, but can’t attend – Earmarks may be dead in the House, but phone-marks are alive and well |
| 1.) Deep Democratic pockets may dry up after tax-cut deal – “President Obama’s advisors are confident that liberals dismayed by his agreement to extend tax breaks for the wealthy will forgive him by the time the 2012 election kicks into gear,” reports the LA Times. But will less forgetful and more moneyed liberals be as starry-eyed? The Times found that “some stalwart party donors are vowing to withhold funds because of their anger over the tax-cut deal.” Hedge fund manager Art Lipson, for instance, told the paper, “I do not plan to support Obama and his reelection effort,” because Obama is not willing to steal more of Lipson’s money. The Times counters its own thesis by pointing out that the DNC raised some big bucks “despite anger in the liberal wing about the lack of a public option in healthcare reform and the slow pace of repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military.” New York Magazine’s John Heileman explained best what Obama must do to keep the money rolling in: “If he is going to climb up on top of Casa Blanca and urinate all over congressional Democrats, he will need to learn the trick that Bill Clinton mastered: doing it with such a big bright smile that they mistake his piss for Champagne.” |
| 2.) Cancun climate conference run by hypocritical clowns – “In the middle of all the global-warming demagoguery and calls for developed nations to shell out $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate reparations to help less-developed countries cope with the unfair burden of climate change, one thing has very obviously not changed,” notes The Daily Caller’s Amanda Carey–”the hypocrisy.” Yes, that’s right. There was lots of “Do what I say, but not as I do,” at this week’s freakout fiesta. “The carbon footprint of the Cancun conference is five times larger than it was for the 2009 conference in Copenhagen, despite the fact that attendance this year was significantly lower,” writes Carey. “The figure of the carbon footprint released by the Mexican government is 25,000 tons.” The pollution caused by guests’ use of private jets, round-the-clock but oft-empty shuttle buses, and electricity use at the resort’s five-star hotel will be “offset” by planting trees in nearby poor-person communities. |
| 3.) The GAO lied, stock prices dived – In August, the Government Accountability Office released a damning report exposing unethical recruiting practices by some of the country’s top for-profit colleges, many of which make the bulk of their profit from government-backed student loans. The Department of Education seized on the findings as evidence that new regulations for the for-profit industry were needed. The feeding frenzy had begun: Liberal bloggers, then mainstream papers like the New York Times, wielded the GAO report like a bludgeon, causing for-profit stocks to plummet. This week, the Washington Post uncovered its own unethical practice: The GAO had lied. And it had lied to such an extent, in fact, that it quietly released a heavily revised version of its report in late November. For some reason, “Oops” just doesn’t seem adequate, does it? |
| 4.) TSA gropes the wrong diplomat – “The foreign minister said Thursday that it was unacceptable that the Indian ambassador to the United States was patted down by a security agent at a Mississippi airport, and that he would complain to Washington,” the Associated Press reports. “The ambassador, Meera Shankar, was returning from giving a speech at Mississippi State University last week when she was pulled out of line at the airport and given a pat-down by a female Transportation Security Administration agent. Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna said this was the second time the ambassador had been chosen for a pat-down in the past three months.” If only Ambassador Krishna were an American politician, she could forego the screening process altogether! |
| 5.) Winner of Nobel Prize actually earned it this year– “Imprisoned in China and with close family members forbidden to leave the country, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is to be represented at the prize ceremony here on Friday by an empty chair,” reports the New York Times. Not since 1935, when Adolf Hitler imprisoned Count Carl von Ossietzky in a concentration camp, has a Nobel prize winner been prohibited from attending by his government. In response to the news, Pres. Obama payed Xiaobo the highest compliment an egomaniac can pay another human being: “Mr Liu Xiaobo is far more deserving of this award than I was.” Meanwhile, the Russian government has suggested that Australian activist Julian Assange should have won the award for nearly giving Hillary Clinton an aneurysm. |
| 6.) Earmarks are only half the problem – While the House may have taken up an earmark ban, there’s nothing to stop representatives from ordering their pork over the phone. “They still will be able to call or write to federal agencies to ask that funds are spent on projects they recommend, and there’s currently no official record of how often representatives and senators do this,” reports TheDC’s Matthew Boyle. “Though the process, dubbed ‘phone-marking,’ doesn’t forcibly require those federal agencies to grant a congressional members’ request, they frequently do because of the clout representatives and senators carry in Washington. Brian Riedl, a fellow for The Heritage Foundation, said the only difference between phone-marks and earmarks is that there is no ‘paper trail’ of members’ requests. Riedl said federal agencies grant the requests more often than not for fear of their budgets being cut by spurned legislators.” Will Republicans take up a phone-mark ban as well? Probably not! |
November 9th, 2010
This is vile even by UN standards. (more)
November 5th, 2010
Drama. Starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. Directed by Doug Liman. (PG-13. 108 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) (more)
October 23rd, 2010
At 107, Millie McCormick surely must be the world’s oldest Texas Rangers fan. (more)
October 7th, 2010
Bahrain’s ambassador to the United States told The Washington Times that she fears her country — home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet — could become the first casualty of a nuclear-armed Iran. (more)
September 28th, 2010
By now, the Democratic plan of attack for 2010 is clear: Define the GOP as a party that can’t be trusted to govern, reach out to moderate Republicans and run hard to the center. (more)
August 24th, 2010
Whitney Thompson has stripped bare in a bid to get women to love their bodies – no matter what their size is. (more)
July 29th, 2010
Speaking in Turkey on Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron slammed Israel and called Gaza a “prison camp.” (Apparently Gaza is the first prison camp with luxury shopping malls.) The British Foreign Office has been taking the blame for this betrayal of Israel, but they’re claiming they were as surprised as anyone. Now, a high-placed and knowledgeable source has informed me that it was Obama’s people who put the slamming of Israel into Cameron’s speech. (more)
July 2nd, 2010
“The Surge: The Untold Story,” a short documentary film about the successful 2007 troop surge in Iraq, is set to air tonight on WHYY, a PBS affiliate in Philadelphia. While viewers will see a real war on screen, the battles that have been raging behind the scenes at WHYY have been interesting in their own right. (more)
July 2nd, 2010
The sexy redhead accused of spying for Mother Russia was on the feds’ radar a decade ago — thanks to her younger sibling, The Post has learned. (more)
June 28th, 2010
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Foreign Office named the United States embassy Monday as the worst offender among diplomatic missions that have racked up 36 million pounds ($54 million) in disputed traffic congestion charges. (more)
June 28th, 2010
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren denied Sunday that he had told Israeli diplomats a “tectonic rift” was emerging between the United States and Israel — incendiary words first reported in the Israeli press and then repeated in media outlets around the globe. (more)
June 23rd, 2010
Rolling Stone magazine published this week a controversial article entitled “The Runaway General,” that has created quite the buzz over the past 24 hours. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan, was profiled in the piece and, to his detriment, made several mistakes. Now, he is being called to the White House to explain the circumstances surrounding the article. In a critical juncture in the war, the president called his most senior commander overseeing 94,000 American troops to most likely reprimand him or ask for his resignation. (more)
June 21st, 2010
WASHINGTON – Twenty-five years after his arrest, the truth about for whom Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard was working is still in doubt. (more)
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