I like that only now, after nearly two years of deficit fearmongering, does the New York Times bother to mention that doing nothing on the deficit will reduce the deficit far more than any deal. The latest Congressional failure to agree on a plan for balancing the government’s books could yield a surprising result: a [...]

The President is reportedly disengaged from the Catfood Commission II deliberations, which is the right political play. He’s improving his standing by focusing on jobs, and the deficit reduction discussions, likely to fail, are precisely what dragged him down over the summer. So letting Congress deal with its own mess makes sense. At some point, [...]

I was on the radio yesterday and I explained that Max Baucus is probably to the left of all the announced members of the Catfood Commission II, something the interviewer could hardly believe. But I think the available evidence shows this to be the case. He dissented from the original Catfood Commission because of Social [...]

I think there’s reason to be happy about the three selections by Harry Reid for the Catfood Commission II, and there’s just as much reason to be skeptical. All three are on the record for a balanced deficit solution – so is the public, incidentally, because no other option has really been put before them [...]

Via everywhere, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has chosen Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) for the Super Congress, the bipartisan committee charged with finding at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. They will make up 1/4 of the 12-member committee: the other Majority and [...]

Harold Koh got slapped around by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, but that was a small price to pay for the Administration for winning the ultimate battle. In a victory for President Barack Obama, a Senate panel voted Tuesday to approve U.S. participation in the military campaign against Libya and Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. The [...]

Eugene Robinson had the best column I’ve seen about the President’s game-playing with war powers on Libya. Blasting dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s troops and installations from above with unmanned drone aircraft may or may not be the right thing to do, but it’s clearly a hostile act. Likewise, providing intelligence, surveillance and logistical support that enable [...]

So I picked the wrong day to be stuck without Internet access, I guess. It was March 19, eight years to the day after the invasion of Iraq, the US lobbed Tomahawk missiles into Libya, attempting to take out air defenses in preparation for enforcing a no-fly zone. We’re on day two of this, still [...]

Good thing the White House is taking the imminent government shutdown so seriously. President Obama designated Joe Biden as his lead negotiator with Congress on a long-term plan to set spending for the rest of the year. They had a meeting Thursday, and I’m not certain they followed up on Friday. And now, Biden’s headed [...]

After that strange speech from Col. Moammar Gadhafi, where he closed by saying “I will die here as a martyr” and accused all protesters of being Islamists and deserving of the death sentence, I think the world should be pretty clear that a madman with fighter jets is in charge of a large country in [...]

I think “baffling” is the appropriate term for the response to the apparent line item in the President’s budget cutting LIHEAP, energy assistance for the poor, by $3 billion (sources now say $2.5 billion). Mainstream journalist Matthew Cooper asks, “Who Wants Grandma to Freeze?” John Kerry, who’s trying to get a job in the next [...]