President Obama’s Afghanistan strategy isn’t working.  So said a parade of Afghanistan watchers during the flap over war commander General Stanley McChrystal’s firing.  But what does that phrase, so often in the media these days, really mean?  And if the strategy really isn’t working, just how can you tell? The answers to these questions raise even [...]

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press. Mr. Drake was charged in April; in May, an F.B.I. translator [...]

One evening last month, the mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, took to the podium at a downtown theater. The occasion was the state of the city address, and despite the mayor’s best effort to project optimism, the truths facing America’s 11th largest city are grim. The budget deficit is at least $85 million. The police [...]

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama has told the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a rule that would not allow hospitals to deny visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners. The president’s memo Thursday notes that “There are few moments in our lives that call for great compassion and companionship that when [...]

In 1776, our founding fathers made a bold pronouncement: that all men are created equal, that we were endowed with inalienable rights, and, among these were Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Enshrined in our Constitution were more bold pronouncements: that no man could be deprived of his rights, that no man [is] above the [...]

Hassan Nemazee, 60, who once ran a private equity firm, admitted in Manhattan federal court to defrauding Bank of America Corp of more than $142 million, Citigroup Inc of $74.9 million and HSBC Holdings Plc of $74.9 million to pay his debt to Citigroup. [...] Nemazee was listed as one of the top “bundlers” of [...]

Options for Obama abound: Mixing jobs, populism and American nationalism, for example, creates a perfect political trifecta for the Democrats. One of the State of the Union dial focus groups indicated that the strongest pro-Obama response occurred when the President suggested ending tax breaks for corporations that outsource American jobs. Up to now, Obama has [...]

Last week, CNN released a poll showing that 86 percent of Americans believe the U.S. government is “broken.” I admit my first reaction was to wonder subversively, “How would they know?” A contemporaneous Pew survey of the public’s “political news IQ” showed that on one of the most heavily reported issues of 2009-10, only 32 [...]

Is there any hope at all that the larger players in the Bush-era criminal activities – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz most prominently – will be brought to justice when those two lesser lights (Yoo and Bybee) are allowed to return to a law school classroom and a seat on the federal [...]

From the BLS: The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction and in transportation and warehousing, while temporary help services and retail trade added jobs. Image via Calculated Risk This graph shows [...]