In a story about a White House adviser being briefed about the underwear bomb technique in October comes this tidbit at the very end…
White House officials say President Obama has been keenly focused on the Qaeda threat from Yemen for months. As the NEWSWEEK story reports, the president has authorized a covert war in the [...]

Ezra Klein did some digging and finds that the health care plans Obama proposed during the campaign season (pdf) closely mirrors what is currently on the table.
First, what he said then…
The Obama-Biden plan provides new affordable health insurance options by: (1) guaranteeing eligibility for all health insurance plans; (2) creating a National Health Insurance Exchange [...]

Oh boy…here we go…
On the Rusty Humphries show on Thursday, Sarah Palin said the following…
Humphries: Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?
Palin: I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make [...]

He reminds America why we’re fighting, how we almost won in Afghanistan, how we got off course because of Iraq (without laying blame), how we plan to fix it and that this isn’t an open ended commitment. He even goes so far as to talk about when he’ll start bringing people home: July 2011.
All [...]

Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our armed services, and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan – the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my Administration will pursue [...]

In the past week, Obama’s approval rating has finally slipped below the 50% mark in Gallup’s daily tracking poll.

The reason why?
His support among white voters has fallen from 61% to 39%. And that could be a big problem as he looks towards 2012.

Or is it such a big problem? Or a completely manageable one?
Looking [...]

As many of you know, I’ve been a fan of Dobbs. Yes, he has been leading the far right on issues like immigration and border security, but he opposed the Bush tax cuts, wanted to raise the minimum wage, is pro choice and favors gay marriage. Meanwhile, he values fiscally responsibility and has a pro [...]

Hey all,
I’ve heard quite a bit of back channel chatter about the last two posts on the blog and I wanted to explain how I was responsible for the topic even showing up here in the first place.
Doug and I are friends on Facebook and he feeds his posts through his profile. I saw the [...]

We all know we’re on an unsustainable course with all of this spending. And this is why I voted for this guy: he’s a realist. We needed a short term shot in the arm when he first got in here, but now we have to worry about the long term consequences.
Politico has more:
On the practical [...]

As I’ve said numerous times before, voters aren’t stupid. They know who piloted our economic collapse last year and it’s going to be extremely hard for Republicans to convince them otherwise.
Still, it is kind of telling that Republicans blame Obama more for the economy than Bush, even though it’s by a very small 6 point [...]

Can you believe it’s 9 points?
Here’s the graph from Gallup:

This creates a bit of an interesting predicament. Should Obama simply push forward with his initiatives and let the polls be damned or can he risk losing independents in front of a tough 2012 fight? I guess it depends on whether or not he can lose [...]

Who’s this guy?
Meet Kenneth R. Feinberg, the new pay “czar” for the White House. He’s tasked with reigning in the out of control compensation at companies the government helped recently.
I think it should be noted right off the bat that this is tied to executive compensation and bonuses…two pots of money that are so [...]

The jokes will be legion, but the policy is sound. And this is a move that Libertarians, Republicans and Democrats can all applaud.
From The AP:The jokes will be legion, but the policy is sound. And this is a move that libertarians, republicans and democrats can all applaud.
From The AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration will [...]

So, it looks like the artist behind the iconic poster of Barack Obama actually did use an A.P. image as a template to create it. Still, there’s a lot to discuss about copyright infringement, Fair Use, etc.
However, first the details from the NY Times:
The A.P. claimed in January that Mr. Fairey owed them credit and [...]

A brief introduction:  I’m a libertarian Republican, fiscal conservative and born-again Christian with moderate social views.  That means I’m sure to irritate everyone at some point, but never mind; I’m pleased to be invited to be part of the Donklephant team. Now, on to the first post …
Along with the head scratching [...]

What to say to this?
Well, I’ll give it a try…
Looks like 1st Amendment rights are alive and well if folks can create a billboard that sits on one of the most well traveled highways in the country and suggest Obama is a communist and make a quasi-revolutionary call. I mean…do they not see the irony [...]

Numbers just came out today and in July the number was 247,000. This is obviously disappointing because the numbers had been consistently dropping since the beginning of the year and this uptick was not expected.
More from Reuters:
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate to rise [...]

First Drudge tried to make it seem like Obama is forcing a news station to not report a story about people who don’t want the Olympics to come to the Chicago…
…and now John Boehner jumps on the pile…
House Minority Leader John Boehner torched President Barack Obama Wednesday for his European trip to pitch the Chicago [...]

I’m starting to notice some poll numbers that suggest an interesting trend. Basically, Americans aren’t necessarily happy with Obama’s health care plans, but they trust Republicans a LOT less.
Take a recent CBS/NY Times poll as an example:

52% of Americans trust Obama to make the right decisions for health, while only 27% feel Republicans are more [...]