Looks like Barack Obama is hitting the ground running:
After making the first key appointment to his administration, Obama spoke by telephone with the leaders of Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, hastening the shift in political gravity away from President George W. Bush.
The financial crisis, the Afghanistan war, climate change [...]

As Barack Obama continues to attract throngs of supporters and polls keep indicating he will win by a more than comfortable margin, I find myself wondering how much of the Obama phenomenon is simply a massive rejection of President Bush and how much is an honest-to-God shift in our political culture.
On one hand, the Obama [...]

The week has started well for world markets as stock exchanges across the globe have rallied or are rallying to post significant gains. The increases are attributed to the coordinated global efforts to unfreeze credit markets, particularly the European Union’s and the United Kingdom’s decisions to fully back bank accounts and infuse troubling banks with [...]

The global economic troubles worsened today as major markets around the world have fallen 6-10%. The situation has deteriorated to the point that the world’s financial ministers and central bankers will meet in Washington this weekend in an attempt to coordinate a global response.
Unfortunately, no one really knows what will calm global markets. On the [...]

I suppose it would have been nice if the $700 billion bailout was the magic bullet needed to right our economic ship. But after today’s tumult on Wall Street, it’s pretty clear we’re not out the woods.
At one point today, the Dow was down 800 points, but managed to close “just” 370 points down. How [...]

I’m sorry folks, but it’s getting downright comical at this point.
Via Politico comes this revealing moment after McCain and Palins’ meeting with Georgian President Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Yushchenko…
McCain then looked around the room and gestured as if to welcome questions. The AP reporter shouted a question at Gov. Palin (“Governor, what have you learned [...]

Andrew Sullivan pens one of the more level headed walks through the post Cold War era and details where we find ourselves now and where we must go…

The end of the Cold War was an opportunity to create a new one. For some, we now realize, the Cold War was not about democratic values versus [...]

Reports today that Russian forces have left South Ossetia and are moving toward Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi are troubling to say the very least. If Russia does indeed try to take the entire country by force and overthrow the government, we’re looking at a brand new geo-political ball game. Now, there’s no indication that permanently [...]

Today he asked the following…
When the “civilized world” expostulated with Russia about Georgia in 1924, the Soviet regime was still weak. In Germany, Hitler was in jail. Only 16 years later, Britain stood virtually alone against a Nazi-Soviet axis. Is it not true today, as it was in the 1920s and ’30s, that delay and [...]

Given the recent flare up in Georgia yesterday and into today, it was expected that the candidates would have to take a position. Both don’t view Russia’s actions as justified, but as Politico points out this represents one of the campaign’s first “3 a.m.” moments and could give us a glimpse into how the candidates [...]

Who knew the views he expressed last fall would be so popular nowadays? And this overseas trip only put an exclamation point on the fact that many seem to adopting his stances in one way or another.
Frank Rich breaks it down…
First, on July 7, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, dissed Bush dogma by raising [...]

Provided in full by MSNBC…

Ultimately I think this speech was a worldwide call to unite in the War on Terrorism, and in that respect I think it could help him.
What did you think?

Do we really think that this many people could be a threat to our national security?
From AFP:
A watch list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday.
The ACLU said it derived that figure from a Justice Department [...]

Those were the words from President Bush to world leaders at the recent G8 Summit…and the response was understandably shocked.
From the Telegraph:
The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
He then punched the air while [...]

I’m sure you’ve heard the reports of what this process actually feels like (a slow drowning), so I’ll spare you Hitchens’ explanation.
Instead, let’s look at the aftermath…
The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel [...]

Given our lack of attention to this region, is it much of a surprise that the former regime is getting stronger?
A new Pentagon report says the Taliban has regrouped after its initial fall from power in Afghanistan. The new report offers a rather dim view of progress in the nearly 7-year-old war, declaring that the [...]

As hinted at yesterday, it’s happening and this decision will no doubt have far reaching consequences…
The announcement came after North Korea handed over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process.
Bush called the declaration a positive step along a long road to get [...]

Could this be a sign that our policy of engaging in carrot and stick diplomacy actually worked?
From the Washington Note:
Tonight, The Washington Note confirmed that the Bush administration will “ask Congress” to de-list North Korea from America’s “terrorist watch list.” This request will be made on Thursday — if there are no last minute, unexpected [...]

Remember my post today about McCain’s $5,000 a car tax break giveaway to the auto manufacturers who make and sell zero-carbon emissions cars?
If so, do you recall how I said it was a bad idea, and that he should instead be proposing giving consumers tax breaks because incenting consumption is the only way we [...]

What in the world was Charlie Black thinking? Because not only did he suggest the contents of the title, but he also talked about an assassination helping McCain’s cause too?
Big time error here…
Charlie Black, an adviser already in the spotlight for his past lobbying work, is quoted in the upcoming July 7 edition of Fortune [...]