NewsTrust - U.S. White House - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By James Joyner - May. 11 (Opinion) - The United States has found itself in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past two decades. Despite frequent opposition by the party not controlling the presidency and often that of the American public, the foreign policy elite operates on a consensus that routinely leads to the use of military power to solve international crises.

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Chuck Schumer on Social Security

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Candy Crowley, Chuck Schumer - Feb. 28 (Interview) - ... I think that the negotiations going on among the bipartisan group of six are a very good thing, and I want them to continue, and I hope they will be successful, and I think most Democrats share that view. Social Security, however, does not contribute one penny to the deficit and won't until 2037. And so therefore... CROWLEY: And yet people in your own party believe that it is urgent that you deal with Social Security, to deal with the overall debt picture. SCHUMER: Well, we believe -- the vast majority of Democrats, overwhelming, believe that since Social Security doesn't contribute to the deficit, since Social Security will not contribute until 2037, that by including it in these specific negotiations it makes it harder to deal with what is the immediate and dangerous problem which is our immediate deficit over this year and the next several years. And, therefore, most of us think that Social Security should be kept for generations, and the way to do that is like what happened in 1983: Democrats and Republicans get together and come up with how we can extend Social Security.

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Obama Rises to the Challenge

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Peggy Noonan - Jan. 15 (Opinion) - About a third of the way through, the speech took on real meaning and momentum, and by the end it was very good, maybe great. The speech had a proper height. It was large-spirited and dealt with big things. It was adroit and without rancor. The president didn't mourn, he inspirited.

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President Obama isolated ahead of 2012

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei - Nov. 08 (Opinion) - President Barack Obama has performed his act of contrition. Now comes the hard part, according to Democrats around the country: reckoning with the simple fact that he’s isolated himself from virtually every group that matters in American politics.

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Juan Williams: "I was fired for telling the truth."

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Juan Williams - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.

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Obama slammed, praised for backing NYC mosque

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - By Scott Applewhite - Aug. 14 (Opinion) - Obama Supports Building Mosque Near Scene Of 9/11

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Terrorism detainee Maher Arar: Supreme Court should have intervened

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Jun. 21 (Editorial) - The Supreme Court has in some cases been willing to temper the excesses of the war on terror, most notably in ruling that inmates at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts. But last week, it fell down on the job when it refused to consider the case of Maher Arar, the victim of an egregious and shocking violation of rights by the U.S. government

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Senate Poised to End Secret Holds

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Ashley Southall - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - A vote this year will be critical to overturning a practice used to delay or derail nominations and legislation. Republican Senators Kit Bond of Missouri and Sam Brownback of Kansas provided the 65th and 66th signatures on a letter sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid requesting a vote to end the so-called secret holds. Mr. Reid also supports the ban.

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Will anyone replace her?

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Hill - By Bill Press - Jun. 09 (Opinion) - Frankly, I’m sorry to see Thomas go. For two reasons. First, because she brought to the briefings an institutional memory and wealth of experience, dating back all the way to JFK, nobody else could match. And her departure, no matter how ignoble, in no way negates that incredible, trailblazing career.

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'Don't ask, don't tell' compromise good, but not good enough

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - May. 26 (Editorial) - All sorts of people step forward to defend their country by serving in the military. And the military is glad to have them: college grads, high school dropouts, men, women. Race doesn't matter, and actually, neither does citizenship. Close to 30,000 members of the U.S. military are not American citizens.

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Analysis: Politics and posing trump health policy

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By Ron Fournier, - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - What happens when you throw 38 lawmakers, four television cameras and the president of the United States together and tell them to fix health care? Sniping. Posing. Serious election-year politics. And little hope of bridging the gap between Barack Obama and Republicans.

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Rahm Emanuel's latest gaffe points to larger issues

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Peter Nicholas, Christi Parsons - Feb. 04 (Opinion) - He's apologized for using the word 'retarded,' but President Obama's chief of staff, once seen as the perfect strategist for the job, has become a target of criticism as the White House's agenda lags.

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GOP: Obama has 'blind spot' on terror war

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - Jan. 30 (Opinion) - The StateGOP: Obama has 'blind spot' on terror warWashington PostAP WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's handling of a Nigerian student who allegedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day exposed its "blind spot" when it comes to the war on terrorism, a Republican lawmaker ...Weekly remarks: GOP's Susan Collins asks, why stop interrogating a terrorist ...Los Angeles Times (blog)THE INTERROGATION Suspect gave details to FBI, sources sayDetroit Free PressHeads should roll for Abdulmutallab travestyTampa TribuneThe Hill?-The New American?-Herald Times Reporterall 180 news articles??

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Obama battles great racial divide

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Kansas City Star - By Yael T. Abouhalkah - Sep. 17 (Editorial) - Obama doesn't want this furor on his hands right now, given all the incredibly important policy decisions he's handling. But critics are off base when they carp about Carter and his comments. They were truthful. And they sting.

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Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Mehdi Hasan - Aug. 24 (Editorial) - So why are Republican politicians fanning the flames with talk of "death panels" and Nazism? Why are pundits like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh indulging in what the historian Richard Hoftstader described as the "paranoid style" in American politics? Do they really not understand that this hysterical wave of hatred and fury against Obama goes beyond healthcare reform, or party politicking, or even the country's so-called "culture wars", and now threatens the life of their elected head of state? Do they want to be held responsible, through their extreme and dishonest rhetoric and hate-filled divisiveness, for the death of America's first black president?

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Obama's crappy patio furniture

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Peter Hartlaub - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - I can't believe the president doesn't have better patio furniture.

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She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jul. 11 (Opinion) - As the Republicans’ lone charismatic performer, Sarah Palin has come to represent a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances. Sarah Palin and Al Sharpton don’t ordinarily have much in common, but they achieved a rare harmonic convergence at Michael Jackson’s memorial service. When Sharpton told the singer’s children it was their daddy’s adversaries, not their daddy, who were “strange,” he was channeling the pugnacious argument the Alaska governor had made the week before. There was nothing strange about her decision to quit in midterm, Palin told America. What’s strange — or “insane,” in her lingo — are the critics who dare question her erratic behavior on the national stage.

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Health-Care Reform's Public Support Problem

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ezra Klein - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - "If you can't reform the employer tax exclusion," a well-connected health-care reform advocate told me a few months ago, "you can't find the money to reform the health-care system." Harry Reid is now saying that there will be no reform of the employer tax exclusion. So can we still reform health care? Probably. By this point in the process, Max Baucus had backed so far down on the exclusion that it was going to raise only $300 billion or $400 billion over 10 years. That's not nothing, but it's not much more than, say, Barack Obama's idea for capping itemized deductions. The money can be found elsewhere.

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Obama enters decisive phase of presidency

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Edward Luce - Jul. 02 (Opinion) - Barack Obama is gearing up for the most decisive phase of his presidency when the fate of his core legislative proposals will show whether he is capable of taming Washington or whether Washington will tame him. Critics and supporters see Mr Obama’s attempts to push his flagship healthcare reform through Congress this month as a critical test of the president’s pledge to take on Washington’s most powerful lobby groups.

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What the Nixon tapes tell us about the Republican Party.

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Christopher Hitchens - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - I wonder sometimes whether the Nixon tapes really will just continue to be the gift that never stops giving. I was in college when Richard Milhous Nixon was first elected president, and I can still remember the profound sense of loathing and disgust that I experienced at the mere sight, let alone the sound, of him and of his most especially repellent sidekick Henry Kissinger. Wiser and older people tell you that the passions of your youth will dry up and that a more sere and autumnal condition will overtake you as maturity advances, but the thought of the Nixon gang in the White House still infuses me with a pure and undiluted hatred and makes me consider throwing up things that I don't even remember having eaten.

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A More Contentious Obama Press Conference

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CBS News - By Brian Montopoli - Jun. 24 (Opinion) - Barack Obama's fourth solo White House press conference differed from his past efforts in many ways: It was held during the day instead of prime time. It was the first to be held in the briefing room. It featured a question that had been directly solicited by the White House.

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Welcome Back, Congress

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dan Froomkin - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - If you believe in the legislative process -- if you actually believe that members of Congress have a role in formulating the laws of this land, rather than just rubber-stamping whatever the president wants -- then you really can't get freaked out when that process gets messy. It is a messy process. [Ed: This could be the last White House Watch column, as the WashPo just ended its relation with Dan Froomkin]

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Obama's Gifts To Brown Irk British Media

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

All Things Considered - By Robert Siegal, Ian Martin - Mar. 09 (Interview) - Only at the last moment was it agreed that there would be a small press conference, and, I think, it was read as a metaphor for the concern that Obama really just didn't like having the Brits in town," Martin says

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For Obama, 'change' doesn't come so easily

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Robert L. Jamieson Jr. - Feb. 26 (Opinion) - as the president's oratory filled televisions across the country, the words of another crossed my mind. Reflecting on the state of modern electoral democracy, the political writer and activist Arundhati Roy once suggested that it really doesn't matter which party leads America. "It's not a real choice," Roy said. "It's an apparent choice. Like choosing a brand of detergent. Whether you buy Ivory Snow or Tide, they're both owned by Procter & Gamble." Yes, Democrats and Republicans are vulnerable to pressure from lobbyists. Both kowtow to the rarified segment of political, economic and military brokers -- a posse the sociologist C. Wright Mills called the Power Elite. And both campaign in poetry to seduce the masses but switch to sobering prose when tough realities dawn and temper hope.

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Obama follows some of Bush's footsteps

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Helen Thomas - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - One judge asked the Justice Department lawyer if the change in administrations had any bearing on the case. "No, your honor," came the reply. According to The New York Times, "even the judges on the panel seemed surprised by the administration's decision to go forward" with the same argument.

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