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A week ago, President Obama touted a newly published report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed the country had lost 247,000 jobs in July. It seemed an odd thing to boast about, but you have to consider the context. The economy was losing jobs at three times that clip when Obama took office in January
Spend a day in this tiny town about 23 miles or so from where President Obama will be holding a town hall meeting on Friday, and it’s easy to see why his health-care push is facing big problems in Big Sky country — even from the people he’s trying to help.
A week after a CIA drone strike is believed to have killed Baitullah Mehsud, you’d think the Pakistan military would be rushing to capitalize on the apparent disarray in the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban as rivals fight to succeed him. But rather than mount an offensive in the strongholds of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in South Waziristan — the sort of campaign promised by President Asif Ali Zardari back in May — Pakistan’s generals seem content to let the CIA’s drones do most of the fighting. Indeed, some officials in Islamabad say Mehsud’s death may open the way for a truce with the TTP, if his successor agrees to stop fighting the Pakistani state and instead turns their weapons on Western forces in Afghanistan
TIME: I thought I’d talk to you a little bit about the whole degree to which this is really a test of leadership. The fact is that no President has been able to pull off anything on this order of magnitude in 44 years [since Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid].President Obama: Well, as you point out, the last time we did something of this magnitude was 1965. And the circumstances in some cases were similar — in some cases were profoundly different.
President Obama complained Tuesday about opposition scare tactics against a proposed health care overhaul but said that failing to fix problems in the current system would be the scariest outcome of all. Obama addressed a supportive town hall meeting that contrasted with combative events held by Democratic Congress members, which have generated heated and sometimes disruptive responses. Also Tuesday, hostile crowds shouted questions and made angry statements against proposed health-care legislation at meetings in Pennsylvania and Missouri led by Democratic senators Arlen Specter and Claire McCaskill.
The Senate’s second-ranking Democrat slammed recent town-hall protests over health care on Sunday, insisting they violate "the democratic process," while the Senate’s top Republican accused Democrats of "attacking citizens" with such complaints. Speaking to CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said: “We have these screaming groups on either side.
Sonia Sotomayor will make history Saturday when she is sworn in as the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in Sotomayor twice at the Supreme Court.
In early 2006, a young man named DeJarion Echols stood in a federal courtroom in Waco, Texas, and pleaded for leniency. After police found about 40 grams of crack cocaine, cash and an assault rifle in his bedroom, the promising athlete and father pleaded guilty to crack distribution and gun charges.
A health care town hall meeting in Florida on Thursday dissolved into bouts of heckling and violent pushing and shoving among attendees. The meeting in Tampa, which featured Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor and Florida State Representative Betty Reed, was another example of the tense battle lines that have been created in the passionate health care debate
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who rose from the housing projects of the Bronx to the top of the legal profession, made history Thursday when the Senate confirmed her to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Sotomayor was easily confirmed in a 68-31 vote.